Like orange is the new black… or is it pink?
Hello, October!
We have officially entered the part of the year where the calendar starts moving spooky fast.
One minute it’s summer, and the next everyone is talking about costumes for Halloween, holiday plans, tax documents, payroll deadlines, and whether buying a new laptop counts as a “strategy” or “panic spending.”
This month, our Monday Briefings (lol just our Monday meeting) had one clear theme: small business owners are making important decisions in a very real-time environment.
Revenue trends are shifting for the holiday season. Hiring is cautious. Quickbooks keeps rolling out updates. Year-end deadlines are approaching. The tools designed to make bookkeeping easier still need something important:
A human who knows what they’re looking at.
If Petty Cash Pebble could speak, he’d say, “ROCK before you ROLL!” (I’ll explain that later ‘cause it just seems like a crazy thing to say with no context, but if you follow us on social media, then it should make some sense… I hope…)
This month we are focusing on The Fall Bookkeeping Reset: what to clean up now to finish the year strong with more clarity, fewer surprises, and less “we’ll figure it out in January” energy.
Housekeeping
Time to check in on upcoming tax deadlines, payroll filings, and year-end planning needs.
October 15, 2026 – Individual and Corporate Tax Returns and all personal tax returns
Also, this fourth quarter -*past the 10/15th extension deadline*- is the best time to book a tax strategy call with your tax pro. Pay them for an
For additional context, you can review the IRS fourth-quarter tax calendar here:
Upcoming Charlotte B Corp™ Collective Events:
CLT B Corp Collective & Sustainability Lunch Bunch Holiday Happy Hour
Thursday, December 10th from 5pm – 7pm
Free Range Brewing
2320 N Davidson St, Charlotte, NC 28205
Sustainability Lunch Bunch and CLT B Corp Collective are teaming up for this informal meeting of the minds to connect, celebrate 2026 and discuss plans for 2027.
Free to attend. Reserve your spot here: https://buytickets.at/charlottebcorpcollective/2426515
Small Business Reality Check
I read through Intuit QuickBooks Small Business Index for October.
The average real monthly revenue for U.S. small businesses with one to nine employees increased by 1.68% in September 2026. At the same time, U.S. small business employment decreased by 7,000 jobs, a decline of 0.05%.
In plain English: revenue may be increasing, but small businesses may be hesitant when it comes to hiring, staffing and capacity.
This matters because small business owners may be asking questions like:
- Can we afford to hire?
- Should we raise prices?
- Can we give bonuses?
- Do we have enough cash for Q4 expenses?
- Should we make a big purchase before year-end?
- Are we actually profitable, or just busier than usual?
Those questions cannot be answered by vibes alone.
They need clean books.
And while QuickBooks continues to roll out helpful tools, including AI-assisted banking, reporting improvements, bill pay updates, and smarter categorization, those tools still need review. QuickBooks may help flag, suggest, organize, or speed things up, but business owners still need accurate records, clean categories, and a clear understanding of what the reports are saying.
Petty Cash Pebble’s official position:
Green checkmarks are helpful. Human review is still undefeated.
The Fall Bookkeeping Reset
If your books are behind, messy, or being held together by good intentions and one folder named “Mostly Receipts,” now is the time to reset.
Here are five areas to clean up before year-end.
1. Reconcile Through September
Start with the basics: make sure your bank and credit card accounts are reconciled through September.
Reconciliation helps confirm that what is in your bookkeeping system actually matches your bank and credit card statements. It can also help catch duplicate transactions, missing expenses, uncleared payments, accidental edits, and transactions that were categorized incorrectly.
This matters even more as bookkeeping software gets smarter.
AI-assisted banking tools and automated suggestions can save time, but they are not a replacement for review. A transaction can look correct, match a pattern, or receive a confident suggestion and still need a second look.
Petty Cash Pebble says:
Before you roll with the software suggestion, ROCK the review.
AKA… ROCK before you roll (told you I would explain).
That means checking:
R — Right Payee?
Confirm who was paid or who paid you.
O — On the right Account?
Check the category, class, location, or project.
C — Categorized?
Categorize, match, or transfer? don’t automatically accept the suggestion.
K — Keep the backup (receipt or explanation)
Attach the receipt, invoice, note, or explanation.
If your accounts are not reconciled, your reports may not be reliable.
And if your reports are not reliable, your business decisions may be based on numbers that are more “inspired by reality” than actually accurate.
2. Review Your Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet
Once your accounts are reconciled, review your key reports.
The Profit & Loss (P&L for short), shows your income and expenses over a specific period of time. Here you can see whether your business is profitable, where your money is going, and any expenses creeping up.
The Balance Sheet shows what your business owns, what it owes, and what is left over. This can help you spot issues with loans, credit cards, owner draws, payroll liabilities, undeposited funds, or accounts that do not look quite right.
DO NOT just look at your bank balance. Check out your reports to get the full story behind how money is moving through your business.
If you struggle understanding one or both of these reports, you’re not alone. Your friendly neighborhood bookkeepers are here to explain them to you, line by line. Give us a call.
3. Review Uncategorized Transactions
Uncategorized transactions are basically bookkeeping gremlins. They sit there quietly, waiting to cause confusion later.
Before year-end, review anything sitting in uncategorized income, uncategorized expense, ask my accountant, suspense, or miscellaneous categories.
4. Review Unpaid Invoices and Unpaid Bills
October is a great time to look at both sides of your money flow: what is owed to you and what you owe to others.
Review your accounts receivable to see which invoices are still unpaid. If clients owe you money, now is the time to follow up before the holiday season slows everything down.
Then review your accounts payable to see which bills are outstanding. This helps you avoid surprise payments, late fees, strained vendor relationships, or cash flow issues later in the quarter.
This connects directly to what many small businesses are facing right now: revenue may be moving, but cash flow still depends on timing.
A sale is not the same as collected cash.
An invoice is not the same as money in the bank.
And a bill you forgot about is still, unfortunately, a bill.
5. Check Contractor and Vendor Records before 1099 Season
You are NOT invited to the January 1099 panic at the disco. It is no longer mandatory to attend nor is it actually a disco.
If you paid contractors or vendors this year, October is a great time to review those records before the year-end rush.
Check that you have updated W-9 forms from any service based business that you have paid/plan to pay *from your bank account* over $2k in 2026. This higher 1099 threshold is one good thing that came out of that dumbass tax bill that passed last year, so most of you will have far fewer vendors to 1099. Vendors you paid with credit cards get this form from the credit card company so you’re off this hook.
This is not the most glamorous task.
But neither is emailing someone on January 27 asking for a W-9 while everyone involved pretends this could not have been avoided.
We’ll be back with more 1099 support in the next 2 months.
Bonus: Forecast your Q4 Cash Flow Before Spending, Bonuses, Donations or Big Purchases
Before making big Q4 decisions, check your cash flow.
A strong Q4 cash flow forecast helps you make those decisions with clarity instead of vibes.
And we support good vibes.
Just not as a financial strategy, consult with your tax pro in Q4 for a tax planning session.
THANK YOU!
Owners are still balancing revenue changes, staffing decisions, cash flow, and year-end planning. QuickBooks updates may help make parts of bookkeeping faster, but faster is only helpful when the information is still accurate.
You still have time to clean up your books, review your reports, check your cash flow, gather vendor information, follow up on unpaid invoices, and prepare for better year-end conversations.
Your future self does not want to spend January decoding mystery transactions from May.
Your tax professional does not want that either.
And your bookkeeper? Your bookkeeper is trying very hard to remain emotionally regulated about it.
So take the reset.
Clean up what you can now.
Ask for help where you need it. Here is a link for help!
And give your business the gift of better numbers before the year wraps up.
Peace & Love,
Alecia
IQ Bookkeeping
P.S. Petty Cash Pebble would like to remind you that “QuickBooks suggested it” is not the same thing as “a human reviewed it.” He may be a rock, but even he knows green checkmarks need adult supervision.
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