Problem · IRS notice, books not ready
An IRS notice came — and the books behind it aren't ready.
Two jobs, two professionals, at the same time. Your CPA or enrolled agent owns the response — reading the notice, the strategy, every determination the IRS will hear. We make the books they'll respond from exam-ready: the periods the notice touches, rebuilt, reconciled, and documented until every number can answer a question twice. The deadline that matters is the real one printed on the notice — no countdowns invented here, and the fee scopes to the work, not to your stress.
Fixed fee after a free review · no rush pricing · representation and tax determinations stay with your CPA/EA, always.
In brief
The honest version, up front.
The response has one owner: your CPA or enrolled agent
Notice interpretation, strategy, deadlines and extension requests, anything the IRS hears — licensed tax work, never ours. We're the other lane.
Our lane: the books the response stands on
The periods the notice touches, rebuilt to exam-ready — reconciled to statements, tied to third-party records, estimates flagged, documentation attached.
Why the window is usually workable
The job scopes to the noticed periods, not the whole backlog — small enough to move fast, priced fixed after a free review, with no rush fees ever.
What's actually happening
A notice creates two jobs — and mixing them up is the expensive mistake.
A notice is a question from the IRS, and it lands on two desks at once. The first is a tax desk: someone licensed to speak to the IRS reads what's being asked, decides how to answer, and manages the clock — including whether more time can be requested for your notice, which is a call your CPA or enrolled agent makes early. The second desk is operational, and it's the one this page is about: whatever the response says, it has to stand on records — and if the bookkeeping for the noticed periods is missing, wrong, or was never reconciled, the response is an opinion without exhibits.
The expensive mistake is collapsing the two jobs into one. Ask a tax professional to rebuild a year of books and you'll pay tax-controversy rates for bookkeeping — the same trap as handing a CPA unfiled-ready books at tax time, at higher stakes. Ask a bookkeeper to "handle the notice" and you've put an unlicensed voice between you and the IRS — a line we will not cross, stated plainly. The setup that works is both lanes running at once: your CPA/EA shapes the response while we make the noticed periods provable, and the two meet before the printed date.
The sequence
Five steps, in the order the deadline needs them.
1 · Your CPA/EA reads the notice
Which tax years, which items, what response the IRS expects, and the real date — plus whether more time can be requested. Their lane, first move.
2 · The books job gets scoped to the notice
The noticed periods and the accounts that feed them — including enough earlier ground to prove opening balances. Nothing more rides the urgent lane.
3 · Rebuild, bank-first
Statements and third-party records set the frame, every account reconciles to a real $0.00, income ties to deposits, and estimates get flagged with their basis — the Third-Party Rule at work.
4 · Your CPA/EA responds from proven numbers
Clean, documented books for exactly the periods in question — we coordinate with your tax professional directly and hand off whatever the response needs.
5 · The rest of the backlog, on a normal clock
Once the response is in, remaining months become an ordinary catch-up on an ordinary timeline — and a monthly rhythm keeps this from happening twice.
The standard
Filing-ready gets a return out. Exam-ready answers questions about it.
| Filing-ready books | Exam-ready books | |
|---|---|---|
| The job they do | A preparer can work forward from them to a return. | They can also answer questions backward — about a return already filed. |
| Categorization | Complete and consistent. | Complete, consistent, and traceable — each material item to a document somebody else keeps. |
| Reconciliation | Every account with a statement, reconciled. | Same — plus the reconciliation reports retained as the proof trail, month by month. |
| Income | Recorded and categorized. | Tied out to bank deposits and processor records, so the total can be demonstrated, not asserted. |
| Estimates | Reasonable where records thin out. | Flagged as estimates, with the basis written down — nothing presents as more proven than it is. |
| The test it passes | "Can my CPA file from this?" | "Asked the same question twice, does the file give the same answer with the same proof?" |
Both standards are bookkeeping. What the IRS ultimately accepts, argues, or asks next is tax practice — your CPA or EA's ground, and we stay off it. Our job ends at books that don't flinch when questioned.
The fix
The repair lane depends on what the diagnosis finds.
The free review reads the noticed periods and names the job honestly. Months entered but wrong — miscategorized, duplicated, never reconciled — route to a bookkeeping cleanup. Months never entered at all route to catch-up. Records genuinely gone — a lost file, a vanished bookkeeper — route to financial reconstruction, rebuilt from what your bank, processor, and payroll provider still hold. Same fixed-fee discipline on every lane: scoped in writing after the review, inside our published ranges, never hourly — and if a different deadline is driving you (a CPA waiting, a filing date, a closing), the deadline cleanup lane runs the same re-sequencing without the notice.
Notice in hand? The free review reads the noticed periods and tells you within one business day what exam-ready takes — the scope, the fixed fee, and what your CPA or EA will have to work with. No rush fees; the fee scopes to the work, not to your stress.
Free books assessmentIRS notice FAQ · Updated July 2026
The questions that decide the next hour.
Related: books not ready for the CPA — the same repair under a filing deadline instead of a notice · the reconstruction method — how books come back when records are gone.
Ready when you are
Give your CPA books that don't flinch.
A senior operator reads the noticed periods free, scopes exam-ready in writing, and works alongside your CPA or EA — fixed fee, no rush pricing, one business day to an honest answer.