You looked up bookkeepers near Abilene because the numbers stopped making sense.
Every account tied back to a statement, the month actually closed, and one person who answers you. It begins with a free look at your QuickBooks® file.
What the schools do to an Abilene year
A town auctioned into existence beside a brand new railroad in 1881 had a Baptist college ten years later, then a second school in 1906, then a Methodist one in 1923. Three of them, inside one West Texas town, still here. You do not have to have attended any of them to feel what they do to the calendar. The year has a shape. August fills the streets back up and the phone starts ringing at hours it never rang in July, then late in May the town exhales and your revenue does something you can either explain or cannot. The books are how you explain it.
August arrives before the books do
The busy stretch starts while last spring is still uncategorized, so the month you most need to read is the month nobody has closed. By the time it finally gets sorted, the decision it was supposed to inform has been made for you.
A slow May looks like a problem it is not
Revenue that dips when the town empties out is seasonality wearing a frightening mask. Books closed on a schedule tell you which of the two you are looking at. Books closed in a panic every spring cannot separate them, so you brace for the wrong thing.
One good year hides inside an unread file
Somewhere in that file is the answer to whether the busy months actually paid for the quiet ones. No category list hands you that. The free look at your QuickBooks file is where reading it starts.
Two steps, and the first one is free
Nothing gets priced before somebody has opened the file. First a free look at your QuickBooks Online file, then a monthly engagement scoped to whatever that look turned up.
The free file look
Somebody opens the file, ties the balances back to the bank and the cards, and says in plain words how far behind the books are and how far back a rebuild would have to reach.
A scope you read before anyone touches it
The open periods, the accounts feeding the file and the monthly rhythm being proposed are written down and handed to you first. You approve the shape of the work before a single transaction moves.
The close, month after month
Every account reconciled on a schedule, the month closed, and a short written note saying what changed and what still needs a decision from you.
If the look cannot tell you what is wrong and what squaring it would involve, it costs you nothing and you owe no decision at the end of it.
We are not on your street in Abilene. We are Texas.
Plainly: there is no lobby on Treadaway with our name over the door, and pretending otherwise would be the first thing we got wrong. Steven Palmieri works from the Dallas side of the state. What we are is Texan, and Texan turns out to be the part that touches your books.
The filings that land on a Texas business land on us every year too. The franchise report comes due May 15 for entities formed or doing business here, and the years when nothing is owed still require a filing, which is exactly where it goes missing. There is no state income tax return standing behind any of it, which sounds like less bookkeeping and quietly becomes more, because the federal return and the franchise report then lean on the same set of accounts with nothing else in the way to catch a mistake. The business personal property rendition that Taylor Central Appraisal District wants by April 15 turns your fixed asset list into a real document with a deadline on it instead of a tab nobody opens. And sales tax changes the moment you cross a city line, so a delivery, a job site or a second location can put a different rate on the same invoice.
None of that needs a local address. It needs somebody who has done it on this side of the state line before. That is what the free look at your file is for.
How the work reaches you from the other side of Texas
Here is the whole mechanic, because it is not complicated and you should be able to picture it before you decide anything.
You keep ownership of your QuickBooks Online file and add us to it, so nothing gets moved into a system you do not control and nothing gets held back if you ever want out. Bank and card feeds arrive on their own, which means you are not scanning statements for anybody. The documents you do have to hand over go through a secure link, once, rather than as attachments drifting around in a thread. Each month closes on a schedule and lands as a short written note: what moved, what changed, what needs a decision from you. When you have a question about a deposit or a card charge, the person who answers is the person who did the work, not whoever is next in a queue that has never seen your business.
When a screen is the wrong place for a conversation, we sit down in person around Dallas and Fort Worth by appointment. From Abilene that cuts the other way, and it is the honest advantage: the work already comes to you. Nobody drives three hours east to hand over a box of receipts, and nobody gives up a working day to a meeting that a shared screen and a phone call finish better. Your quiet week in June does not get spent on I-20.
What the free look actually produces
It is a reading of your file rather than a sales call with a screen share attached. Somebody opens the QuickBooks Online file, checks what ties back to the bank and what has drifted, follows the drift to see how far back it reaches, and returns with the two things you cannot get anywhere else: the condition the books are actually in, and what putting them right would involve.
You get that whether or not you hire anybody. If your file is in better shape than you feared and wants nothing heavier than a light monthly rhythm, that is the answer you get, in those words. If a rebuild has to reach back further than you were hoping, you hear it with the reason attached, before anyone writes a scope around it.
After the look, the monthly engagement gets written down: which accounts, which rhythm, what lands on your desk and on which day. You read that before it starts. Nothing about the arrangement has to be guessed at, and nothing about it shifts quietly later.
The form below is the entire beginning. Tell us what the business does and where the books went sideways, and the look gets scheduled.
Sources: Handbook of Texas Online, entry for Abilene, TX (tshaonline.org); Taylor Central Appraisal District, Frequently Asked Questions (taylor-cad.org); Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Franchise Tax (comptroller.texas.gov).
Get your free file look
Tell us what the business does and where the books went sideways. You hear back inside one business day.
Questions owners ask first
Does it matter that you are not in Abilene?
Not for the work itself. The file lives online, the feeds arrive on their own, and the person reading your books is the person who answers your call. What a local lobby adds is a drive for you, and the drive is the part we can subtract.
What does the free look cost me?
A form and an invite to your QuickBooks Online file. You get a plain answer about the condition of the books and what squaring them would involve, and you owe no decision at the end of it.
Do you handle the Texas franchise report?
Yes, along with the federal return and the bookkeeping both of them rest on. The report comes due May 15 for entities formed or doing business in Texas, and the years with nothing owed still need a filing, which is where it most often gets missed.
How far back can a rebuild reach?
Further than most owners expect. Books have been rebuilt from statements alone across several years of silence. The free look tells you how far back yours has to reach before anybody puts a number on the work.
Can we ever meet in person?
Around Dallas and Fort Worth, by appointment, when a shared screen is the wrong way to have the conversation. From Abilene most of it goes better without the drive, and the monthly note plus a phone call covers the rest.
What happens once the books are current?
A close that lands on a schedule, a short written note each month, and an arrangement you can end whenever it stops earning its keep. There is no lock-in and nothing to unwind.