Running the business · 2 min read · Published
What we usually see when the bookkeeper quits in October
By Chris Greco, Founder and President.
When the bookkeeper quits in October, the company faces a Q4 close, year-end, 1099s and W-2s with nobody in the seat. The first week matters more than the hiring decision.
Get the passwords, bank feeds and payroll access into the company's hands, not a person's. Reconcile the last month closed to find out where the books actually stand. Pay the bills that are due; stop everything else until someone owns the ledger again.
Then decide whether to hire a person or a function. A departure is often the moment a company learns its books depended on one set of hands, and chooses not to let that happen twice.
Where this applies

Chris Greco
Founder and President, CFO Anywhere. CFO for owner-led companies since 2002. Executive MBA, Gies College of Business, University of Illinois.
About ChrisMore from Chris
Banking and lending · 3 min read
What your bank wants to see before renewing your line of credit
Before renewing a line, your banker needs three things your books may not produce: statements that tie to the tax return, a balance sheet where every account reconciles, and the covenant calculated the way the loan agreement defines it. Everything else is paperwork.
By industry · 3 min read
What we usually see when a family reaches its fourth entity
When a landlord or brokerage family reaches its fourth entity, each property has its own books kept differently, intercompany loans nobody documented, and K-1s that are late because the entity books close in March.
Banking and lending · 4 min read
What a buyer will find in your books, and what to fix first
A buyer will find three things in your books before they find anything else: add-backs tangled into the P&L, a working-capital level nobody has measured, and receivables or inventory they will discount. Fix them in that order; each one moves the price.