The challenge
Jean thought the tax return was handled.
When Dave Salvato, CPA, looked into it in early September 2026, he found that no one was preparing it and no extension had been filed. The return had been due since March 16, and the penalty had grown every month since.
Jean also saw his numbers late. After a good week, the money in the bank looked like his to keep. Then the sales tax on labor and parts came due.
The solution
We filed the return first, then rebuilt nine months of books.
The tax return
Dave got the OK to act for the business on September 2. The IRS and North Carolina accepted the return on September 10, eight days later.
Filing stopped the penalty at $3,060. If the return had sat until the end of the year, the penalty would have reached $5,100. On October 16, we called and got the whole penalty waived. The IRS waives a penalty like this only for a business with a clean record, and the shop had one.
The books
We took over the books on October 1. In the first two weeks, we:
- Rebuilt January through September, so each month’s profit shows the work done that month
- Matched the books to AutoFluent, the shop’s own system, to the cent
- Checked the shop’s SBA loan against all 49 of its statements
- Added five 2025 supplier bills that had never been entered
- Finished September’s books by October 8
We also put the shop’s regular tasks and deadlines on one calendar. Anything not yet done is flagged each weekday.
The numbers
More than anything, Jean wanted one number.
“I’ve just wanted someone that can tell me how much I need to bring in to cover costs.”
We worked out that number and tied it to the books. Every Monday, Jean also gets a cash forecast built from the bills on file. The September sales tax and third-quarter tire tax returns were filed on time on October 15.
The result
The rebuilt books showed where the shop is growing.
Business accounts were billed almost twice as much as a year before.
That’s across the shop’s six business accounts, January to September, compared with the same months of 2025. Seeing that, Jean put together an offer for other local businesses, and the shop now emails up to 15 of them each weekday. The first emails went out on October 14. Within two days, one business had booked work by phone, and another had replied to say yes.