Requests: answering your bookkeeper
Why requests exist, how to answer them quickly, and why a two-line answer today prevents a wrong number next month.
How-toFor Portal clients, Business owners
Why you are being asked
Some things cannot be determined from a bank statement. A $2,400 payment to a hardware store might be a repair, a capital improvement, or personal — and those three answers produce three different sets of books and three different tax outcomes.
A request is your bookkeeper asking rather than guessing. Guessing is faster in the moment and considerably more expensive later.
Answering well
Useful answers usually cover:
- What it was for, in plain language.
- Whether it was business or personal.
- For anything substantial, whether it was a repair or an improvement — that distinction decides expense versus asset.
- Who the counterparty was, if the bank description is unhelpful.
- The receipt or invoice, if you have it.
Attach documents directly to the request rather than emailing them. They stay with the question and with the transaction, so a year from now the answer is still findable.
Common questions
Say so rather than guessing. Your bookkeeper has options — checking a vendor statement, looking at the pattern of similar transactions, or coding it conservatively with a note. A guess presented as fact is the worst of the three.
Say so. The expense is usually still recordable, but documentation requirements vary by amount and type, and your bookkeeper needs to know whether the support exists.
Yes — requests work both ways, and asking there rather than by email keeps the answer attached to your account where you can find it again.
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