Welcome Aboard

Posted Saturday, July 12, 2025

Sending Docs Checklist for 1040 Tax Returns

welcome aboardEveryone is excited to be working with you. Yay! We appreciate the trust you have put into us as a team and WCG as a tax and accounting CPA firm, and we do not take that lightly.

So that we may have the best of relationships and successful engagements, we’ve broken down our Welcome Aboard spiel into three parts-

  • Managing Expectations
  • Document Checklist
  • Onboarding / Kickoff Meetings

Again, many thanks for selecting WCG CPAs & Advisors as your trusted tax and accounting team. Here we go!

Managing Your Schedule Expectations

Here is a super high-level cluster of things to expect throughout the year. WCG CPAS & Advisors thinks in a 13-month period for our “Annual Client Management” internal task, or the ACM for short. It spans December to December. Huh?

Dec Tax season kicks off with engagement letters
Jan Business entity tax return prep starts
Feb Individual tax return prep starts
Mar Tax team crying starts
Apr Crying ends, recharging begins with firm closure
May Tax planning starts with pre-planning meeting
Jun Tax planning continues with planning review meeting
Jul Planning wraps up, extension season starts
Aug Extensions are in full swing
Sep Business entity tax returns wrap up
Oct Individual tax returns wrap up
Nov End of year review, tax planning tweaks
Dec End of year data gathered (W-2)

As such, your December might involve both tax kickoff with engagement letters and sending us your final health insurance, 401k ambitions and other items for W-2 preparation if you have payroll and if we process your payroll.

The is overly simplified, Yes! For a much more detailed version, please click here and the button below. Want to cook the above mini calendar down some more like a nice balsamic reduction for your caprese salad? Let’s do it!

WCG thinks in four seasons- tax preparation, tax planning, extension, and end of year. We say this as a way to help you manage expectations. What do we mean here? When you call in March and want to chat about a rental property you might or might not purchase, please understand where our focus lies when we kindly ask to defer that conversion until May or June.

Another thought- it will take 12-18 months for you and your WCG teams to feel comfortable with each other. It is the nature of the beast… the at-times complicated and stressful beast. Hang in there! We are in this for the long-haul and look at 12-18 months as a nothing burger but we understand you might not feel the same way. Let’s talk it through!

wcg calendar

Robust Schedule of Annual Events

Here is a detailed version of the table above.

1040 tax return

1040 Docs Checklist

Preview of things we need to prepare your 1040 tax returns.

Business Entity Docs Checklist

Things we need to prepare your partnership or corporate tax returns.

Managing Your Meetings Expectations

Who drives the boat? In most ways, you do. We will ping you with phone calls, emails and text messages about critical things like tax return preparation and payroll processing approvals. However, if you want to chat about your business or have a question on a car purchase or want to discuss some tax wizardry your bartender informed you of, those requests come from you. We used to ping business and rental property owners in the past for these meetings but it quickly became noise and unproductive; as such we encourage you to reach out to us… at any time… for anything.

Having said that, there are three meetings we will schedule for all advisory engagements (business advisory, investor patrol and tax patrol)-

  • Pre-tax planning (around May or June, or when you onboard)
  • Tax plan review (around June or July, or when ready to deliver)
  • End of year review (November and December)

Notice something missing? Yup, you got it, tax return meetings. There are three potential meetings for tax return preparation-

  • WCG requested to clarify things or to discuss tax position as we prepare the tax return.
  • Client (you) requested once the tax return is delivered (we love these by the way- something good always comes out).
  • WCG requested as the tax return is delivered to clarify things, explain material differences as compared to the prior year, or other “we think we need to chat about this” situations.

Managing Your Email Expectations

Email can be an effective communication tool, and it is especially good for questions that require thought and good for memorializing conversations. While email is a chore for most people it can also be a distraction. Your WCG team is no different.

As such, we have two big rules that you need to be aware of-

  • The tax team, for example, only checks emails on Mondays and Thursdays. While there is no such thing as an accounting emergency, only poor planning, should you be needing a quicker response, then call us!
  • Next, if our response to your email inquiry will take more than 5-10 minutes to write, then we will default to either a) picking up the phone and calling you out of the blue or b) sending you a calendar link so we can discuss it. Email is horribly inefficient. Having said that, we leave room for the expat or the person who works challenging hours or the person in a secure military facility, and needs some love from their tax professional but can only do email. But it cannot be the default.

When we have our amazing conversation via Teams or phone call, we will always send a recap email to memorialize all the goodies. This recap email also gets captured by our workflow software allowing all other team members to the recap as necessary.

Managing Your Communication Expectations

You might several people contacting you for various reasons. The team members forming your business or preparing your S Corp election are different than the people setting up the payroll systems for payroll processing. These team members are different than the people preparing your tax returns or tax plans. All these people are different than our support teams who contact you during tax and extension seasons to gather data and keep the workflow moving.

client communicationsAccounting services (bookkeeping)? Yup, you guessed it, totally different than the people above.

Once things get humming along, you could easily have four different people contacting you- support, payroll, accounting and tax. This is all on top of your Client Manager who is the conductor of your quartet.

If you ever feel overwhelmed… and it is common for this to happen in the early stages of our relationship… please connect with your Client Manager to cut through all the madness.

Managing Your Team Expectations

As we grow as a CPA firm, it is impossible to not share the engagement management between two people- the established partner or tax management, and the new person. This allows all WCG team members to reach their career objectives, and for WCG CPAs & Advisors to be a place where clients and employees gain comfort and can call home.

Our commitment to you does not waver- you will always have a partner who is ultimately responsible and as such, this person is always available for you.

Expectations Summary

If this doesn’t work for you… if you are used to working with a solo practitioner who answers their personal cell phone 24/7 and want to continue with that approach, then we might not be a good fit. Our teams specialize. They are experts in their micro-profession, and we believe that is the most complete way to approach taxes and accounting. Oh, and they don’t go on family leave or take vacations all at once either.

Who wants to move along? The rest of this is our onboarding checklist and a series of next steps.

Documents Checklist

As a new client on our advisory platform (Business Advisory, Investor Patrol or Tax Patrol), there are several things we need from you. Please bear with us- we are not wanting to create busy work or ask for obscure stuff like an underwriter the day for closing. Our only goal is to be comprehensive and complete, and to help you manage your expectations. So, two goals.

Here is an overview of our onboarding checklist. We have buttons below to give you a deeper dive into the lists and also answers to the “why do you need this” question. This is just a quick narrative in lieu of the robust and possibly nauseating deep dive later.

1. You, the Human

  • Prior year tax returns, all pages, all schedules, including state(s). Did we mention all?
  • For tax planning purposes, we need your most recent paystub including your spouse (if applicable) and a completed Simplified Tax Planning PDF (the “STP”) or secure online form.

2. Business Stuff (if applicable)

  • Formation documents including articles, EIN, all owners full contact information including SSNs/EINs, operating agreement including ownership splits, S Corp election, S Corp acceptance, benefits and retirement plans, among other things.
  • Prior year tax returns, all pages, all schedules, including state(s).
  • Payroll accounts information (if applicable).

3. Rental Stuff (if applicable)

  • If your rental property is owned by an entity such as an LLC, then formation documents including articles, EIN, all owners full contact information including SSNs/EINs, operating agreement, among other things.
  • Purchase docs such as a settlement statement or closing disclosure. Any prior 1031 exchange information and cost segregation study reports (we do a cursory analysis to ensure nothing is crazy or out of whack).
  • Prior year tax returns, all pages, all schedules, including state(s) if your rental property filed a partnership tax return (Form 1065 with Form 8825).

Please use the buttons below to get robust versions of this list above.

Tax Planning Docs Needed

Checklist of the things we need to prepare a tax plan for you and your household.

Business Records Onboarding Checklist

Review our business records for onboarding checklist.

Rental Property Setup Information

Data on your rentals such as purchase docs, depreciation, 1031 information, cost seg, etc.

Onboarding / Kickoff Meetings

The primary purposes of the onboarding meetings are to-

  • Answer any questions you might have.
  • Gather the necessary data to allow us to the work you requested.
  • Outline the next steps, and get everyone rowing in the same direction.

Seems rather generic, right? That’s intentional since depending on your situation, you might have four different onboarding / kickoff meetings-

  • Entity structure and business formation and related matters such as S Corp elections.
  • Accounting services (bookkeeping) sets up or transfers including bank feeds.
  • Payroll account set ups or transfers.
  • Tax planning and eventual tax return preparation

Wow, right? You’re busy, we get it. Everyone is busy. However, for us to the tasks you hired us to do, we must slow down and take time to administer these onboarding / kick meetings. Please!

Let’s get these cheduled right away (please refer to our email for scheduling link).

Onboarding Updates

Our business development team led by Amanda Pattern meets with all team members weekly or bi-weekly depending on the engagement, scope of work and necessary urgency. Her team then turns around and sends you an onboarding update on Thursdays. These are informational and give you a summary of the success so far, and the open items that remain. They also will outline homework or action items for you (see please don’t blow them of).

Sharefile Portal

Click here to securely submit your documents via ShareFile!

Tax Return Extension

Extend your business and individual tax returns together easily with one form.

Tax Patrol Services

Learn about Tax Patrol – affordable tax help for individuals and small businesses!

1040 Tax Return Review

Review your individual tax return using our step-by-step guide and helpful flowchart.

Efile Authorization

Authorize electronic filing of tax returns with our step-by-step guide and Canopy portal instructions.

Canopy Client Portal

Authorize electronic filing of tax returns with our step-by-step guide and Canopy portal instructions.

wcg tax
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