Your CPA needs two things from you for the 2026 tax year: books that are reconciled and complete through December 31, 2026, and a short package of reports built from them. That package is a trial balance, the general ledger, the year's financial statements and what you paid each contractor. Send it in January. The first IRS deadline is February 1, 2027, when Forms 1099-NEC are due, and the business returns follow on March 15 and April 15, 2027.

I ran a bookkeeping firm for eight years. This is the checklist we worked through before anything went to a CPA. If the year was kept up, it takes an afternoon, and the last section shows how to hand the package over in one message.

What does my CPA need from me at year end?

Your CPA needs five things from you, all built from reconciled books.

• A trial balance as of December 31. Every account's ending balance on one page, with debits equal to credits. Your CPA maps these balances onto the lines of the return.
• The general ledger for January 1 to December 31. Every line behind those balances, so the CPA can answer their own questions.
• The year's financial statements. The Profit and Loss for the year, the Balance Sheet as of December 31 and the Cash Flow.
• Contractor totals for 1099s. What you paid each person or business that is not an employee, with their Form W-9.
• The paperwork behind a few balances. December bank and card statements, each lender's year-end statement, your payroll provider's year-end reports and receipts for big purchases.

Ask your CPA in December if they want anything else.

The owner's year-end checklist

Seven checks, in this order, get your books ready for taxes.

1. Every account reconciled through December 31. Checking, savings and every credit card, each tied to its December statement's ending balance. Reconciling proves the books match the bank.
2. Nothing left in To Review. A transaction that is not categorized and posted is not in your reports, so it is not on your return either. Clear the list, odd rows included.
3. Owner draws and contributions in equity. Money you took out, including personal charges on the business card, is an owner's draw. Money you put in is a contribution. Neither is an expense or income.
4. Loan balances matching the lender's statement. Each payment splits into principal, which lowers the loan, and interest, which is an expense. If the balance does not match the lender's December 31 statement, a split went wrong.
5. Payroll booked from the provider's register. Your bank shows only net pay and tax payments. Gross wages, withholdings and employer taxes come from the register. Check that the year's wages match the provider's annual totals.
6. Fixed asset purchases listed. A truck, a machine, a computer: write down the date, what it was, what it cost and when you started using it. Your CPA decides whether each one is expensed now or depreciated over time.
7. Year-end entries the CPA asks for. Depreciation, accruals and other adjustments come back from your CPA as journal entries. Book them exactly as given, so your books match the return they filed.

If the year has not been kept up, start with how to catch up on bookkeeping, then come back to this list.

What reports does my accountant need?

Your accountant needs a trial balance as of December 31 and the general ledger for the full year, plus the Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow.

Report	What it shows	Why the CPA wants it
Trial balance	Every account's balance on one date	The numbers that go on the return
General ledger	Every line in every account for a date range	Answers "what is this?" without a phone call
Profit and Loss	Income and expenses for the year	Where taxable profit starts
Balance Sheet	What you own and owe on December 31	Loans, equity and assets carried into next year
Cash Flow	Where cash came from and where it went	Why profit and cash in the bank differ
Payee totals	What you paid each vendor	Who gets a 1099

Send the trial balance and the ledger as spreadsheets, so your CPA can sort them. PDFs are fine for the statements.

When do I need to send them?

Send the package in January 2027, as soon as December's statements arrive. Here are the federal due dates for the 2026 tax year, from the IRS 2027 tax calendar (Publication 509) for calendar-year filers.

What is due	Who files it	Due date
Form 1099-NEC, to each contractor and to the IRS	Businesses that paid a contractor $2,000 or more	February 1, 2027
Form 1065	Partnerships	March 15, 2027
Form 1120-S	S corporations	March 15, 2027
Form 1040, with Schedule C for a sole proprietor's business	Individuals	April 15, 2027
Form 1120	C corporations	April 15, 2027

A few notes on those dates:

• The 1099-NEC date moves. It is normally due January 31, but a due date on a weekend moves to the next business day (IRS instructions), and January 31, 2027 is a Sunday.
• Extensions give more time to file, not to pay. Form 7004 gives business returns six more months, to September 15, 2027 for partnerships and S corporations. Form 4868 gives individuals until October 15, 2027. Neither is more time to pay.
• Check the final dates. As of October 2026, the 2027 calendar is still an early release draft. Your CPA will confirm the final dates and your state's.

Your CPA's own cutoff comes earlier, because they still have to prepare the return. Ask them for it.

What about 1099s?

For payments made in 2026, you generally send a Form 1099-NEC to each person or business that is not your employee and that you paid $2,000 or more for services. The IRS threshold was $600 for payments made before 2026. Copies go to the contractor and to the IRS by February 1, 2027.

Three rules from the IRS 1099-NEC instructions cut the list down:

• Card payments are not yours to report. Payments made by credit card, payment card or a third party network are reported on Form 1099-K by the payment company, not by you on a 1099-NEC.
• Most corporations are exempt. Payments to a corporation, including an LLC taxed as one, generally need no 1099-NEC. Legal fees are the exception.
• Wages are not 1099 payments. Employees get a W-2 for their pay.

Collect a Form W-9 from each contractor before you pay them. It gives you the legal name and taxpayer ID number the 1099 needs. Your CPA or a filing service files the forms. You bring the list: who, how much, and how you paid them.

How to hand it over in one message

In Switchbooks, you ask Switch, the AI bookkeeper in the app, for the whole package in one message, and he hands you the files in the chat:

Get 2026 ready for my CPA. Check that every account is reconciled through December 31 and nothing is left in To Review. Then give me the general ledger for 2026 and a trial balance as of December 31 as Excel files, and the 2026 Profit and Loss, the Balance Sheet as of December 31 and the Cash Flow as PDFs.

What comes back:

• A close check for December. For each bank and card account: how far it is reconciled, what is still in To Review, and whether the books still tie to the latest statement. If a reconciliation is missing, give Switch the statement's ending balance and he does it with you.
• The general ledger for the dates you pick, as an Excel (.xlsx) download.
• A trial balance as of any date, as an Excel download, with every account's debit or credit and the totals.
• The Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow for any dates, as PDF downloads.

For 1099s, ask Switch: "Total what we paid each payee in 2026, largest first." He totals every payee for the year. To see the transactions behind a total, open the Payees report from the Reports page, pick up to 100 payees and set the dates to 2026. It groups their transactions by payee with a total for each one, and exports to Excel or Google Sheets. No Payee is first in the list, so you can see which payments still need a name.

Then invite your CPA to the company. In Settings, Team, choose Invite member and pick the Accountant role, or ask Switch to send the invite. Your CPA gets their own login to the same books, with no per-user fee. Every role can edit; there is no read-only role. Once your CPA is on the company, Switch can email them a statement PDF, after showing you the email and the totals. When the year-end entries come back, your CPA can book them, or you paste them to Switch and he books them as given.

What Switchbooks does not do. It does not file taxes, 1099s or W-2s, and it does not run payroll. It keeps the books, proves them against the bank and gives you a clean package for your CPA. The return is your CPA's job.

More than one company? Each company has its own books and its own package. You also get a combined Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow across companies for your own view, without intercompany eliminations. More on bookkeeping for multiple companies.

If the year is not in Switchbooks yet

There is still time. Connect each bank and card account through Plaid and pick January 1, 2026 as the start date. A new connection starts on the first of last month unless you choose otherwise, and it can reach back up to 730 days when the bank provides that much history. Plaid also brings about three months of checking and savings statements when the bank offers them. For anything else, import files: CSV, Excel (.xlsx), PDF bank statements, and OFX, QFX or QBO downloads. The catch-up guide walks through it.

Switchbooks is $25 a month per company, with a free 10-day trial and no card. If you are weighing it against hiring help, here is what AI does and what still needs a bookkeeper.

IRS sources, checked October 26, 2026: 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC instructions (Rev. December 2026), Am I required to file a Form 1099?, Publication 509 (2027) draft and When to file. General information, not tax advice.