You want this to start. So the first thing worth settling is which month gets closed first and on what date, because everything else is easier to judge once there's a real date on the table.
Plenty of owners still assume a firm is something a bigger company hires. A smaller one can start inside this month, and the whole arrangement fits on one rail of dates.
Two sorts of reader land here. If you can name the month you want closed, this is your page. If you came looking for how to open a firm of your own, there's a short page for that and this site won't try to teach you a launch.
Day one is a call. Day two is an invite to the file, and your password never moves. By day twelve one operating account agrees with the bank. On the tenth of the following month there's a page with a single figure circled on it, while this year is still open.
The figure would be yours, so the drawing leaves it blank.
Inside a company with a finance department, the CFO sits at the top and the controller, the bookkeepers and any CPAs on staff report up to that seat. An owner shopping for a firm is usually pricing the base of that drawing rather than the seat that decides the year. A Tax CFO is the controller and CFO seat for an owner-run business with the tax work inside it, so the books, the return and the plan come from one desk and the October number is decided before the year ends.
Breadth is the books and the return starting from that first trusted page, so nothing has to be redone when April arrives. Height is the circled figure being an actual decision, taken from the top of the drawing while the year can still move. Businesses don't hire a CPA. They hire a CFO.
Picture a shop where nobody has ever closed a month. Day one would be the call, the file would be shared by invite, and the tenth of the following month would be the first page anybody there should trust. Composite, and no company name.
Dating the first close is ordinary work and the person on this rail holds no CPA license. Audits, reviews, compilations and reports that give assurance on your statements stay with a firm that holds one.
Payroll can be prepared here and is run by you on a provider you own. This desk doesn't stand in for you in an examination. The rest of the wording is on the disclosures page.
Source. Texas Occupations Code sections 901.451, 901.453 and 901.456, the rules behind that limit, read 29 September 2026 while dating a first close.
A sentence is enough. You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice. Leaving with a blank rail is a complete visit.
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.