My Business Bookkeeping Is a Mess can start with a time on the calendar.

What the call is for

The call is a look at the shape of the pile, not a completed sort. We will ask what software opens, whether a catch-all is obvious, and whether a bank screen has ever matched. You leave knowing the first month we would touch, and whether we would start at all.

A winter storm can close the roads and move a morning call. A rescheduled call is ordinary. Weather moves the call. The oldest month you already named is still the one we open. Bring that month even if the rest of the year is fuzzy. We do not need you on an icy highway to start the sort. A screen share from the kitchen is enough, and the month does not change because the morning did.

A call is not the sort. Forty minutes does not rebuild a year, and we will not pretend it does. Have the software nearby if it opens, the bank that feeds it, and the oldest month you can name. If a letter from the state is what made you call, set it beside the keyboard even when you stopped at the greeting. If none of that is in reach, come anyway and say so. If the only true sentence you have is the season the pile started, that sentence is the one we want on the call. A file you polished the night before is less useful than the month you can still name. If saying the oldest month out loud is the hard part, write it in the note and we will start there.

Open the calendar when you are ready. It does not load with the page, so arriving here does not jump you down to the frame.

Have the software login nearby if you can, and the name of the bank that feeds it. You do not need a tidy export. A messy screen is the point of the call. If a notice is the reason you came, have that notice too, even if you have not read past the first line.