CFO vs ControllerOctober can still change the year
October is when a finished set of books can still change the year.
Look at October
What is still movable
By October most of the year has happened, and a slice of it has not. An owner wage can still be set so it matches the year the return will describe. An estimate can still be chosen on purpose instead of by surprise. A hire, a price, a piece of equipment, or a lease can still be timed so the cash view and the return agree about it.
None of those choices is a trick, and none of them is a number we invent on a page. They are decisions that exist only while the year is open. January is a different conversation. January explains. October chooses. We would rather be in the choosing month with you.
The choices are only as good as the months under them. If summer is still open, October belongs to closing those months. The choices wait until the months can hold them. We say so on the call, even when you hoped to start with the interesting part.
The wage, the draw, and the estimate
Owner pay gets muddy when draws and wages share one account all year and someone sorts them in a panic later. October is a kinder time to look. What has been taken. What was meant as pay. What the provider actually ran. We set the payroll up so the rest of the year, and the next one, does not repeat the muddle. The provider still runs payday.
An estimate is a choice about tax you expect to owe, made before the year ends. The closed months are what we spread out before anyone picks an amount. You choose the amount. We do not file a guess to look busy. If the months cannot support a picture, the estimate waits or the months get closed. You hear which one.
Equipment and a lease get the same treatment. A simple look at cash over the next thirteen weeks tells you whether the purchase is a decision or a hope. Hope is allowed. It should not be labeled as a plan.
In the last open months
Click to see the months ›Tap to see the months ›
The controller half in October is ruthless about the months that are still open. The CFO half is the list of choices that remain. Doing the second list on top of open months is how an owner feels decisive and then meets a return that contradicts the feeling. We keep the lists in order.
An IRS notice in the fall has a particular chill to it. The quarter it asks about is often one the owner meant to reconcile and did not. October is when that notice is still a file you can build, not only a worry. We would rather build the file.
A kitchen table in October still looks like the year has room, with the notice and the laptop open on it, and we still feel how open that evening is. A cold week can arrive while the calendar says the warm season. We feel that turn in the books. The books have the same surprise. The year looks open, and then it is not. October is the month we treat as that turn, on purpose.
The October list, written down
Click to see the list ›Tap to see the list ›
October gets a short list, and the list is written rather than remembered. Which months are still open. Which draws were meant as pay. Whether the provider's payroll matches that intention. Which estimate, if any, the closed months can support. Which purchase is a decision and which one is a hope. We do not rank them by how dramatic they feel. We rank them by what the year can still absorb.
You can leave with that list even if the call never becomes an engagement. A list you can see is already more useful than the feeling that October is busy. The feeling is true. The list is what makes it usable. If an IRS notice is already in the pile, it goes on the list as a file to build. Write the open months on the list before the wage, so the choice has a closed file under it.
Name the choice
Say which decision is still floating, and whether the recent months are closed.
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.