What Does My CPA Actually Need From Me at Year End?

What financials should I hand over?

Start with the reports, because everything else supports them.

• A profit and loss statement per entity for the full year. If you hold properties across multiple LLCs, each one gets its own, because each one is its own return or its own schedule.
• A balance sheet per entity as of December 31. This is the report landlords most often skip and the one a CPA most often asks for twice. It carries the loan balances, the accumulated improvements, the security deposits held, and the owner contributions, and none of that shows up on a P&L.
• A profit and loss by property where the entity holds more than one. Depreciation, basis, and disposition are all per property, so a lump-sum entity P&L makes the CPA rebuild the split you already have. We cover how to produce this from a single bank account in getting a P&L per property.
• A general ledger or transaction detail for the year, so any line the CPA questions can be traced without another email.
• A statement of what is reconciled through what date. One sentence. It tells the CPA how much of the file they can trust without re-checking, and it saves more time than anything else on this list.

Which source documents does the CPA still need?

Clean financials do not replace the underlying documents, because several tax positions are set by the document rather than by the books.

• Bank and credit card statements for every account, including December. December is the one most often missing, and it is the month that sets every ending balance.
• Year-end mortgage statements and Form 1098 for each loan. The 1098 reports the interest; the December statement carries the ending principal balance and the escrow activity. Both matter, and they do not say the same thing. If the split between principal, interest, and escrow is not already in your books, this is how to build it.
• Platform payout and tax reports for short-term rentals. These are the only records that show gross booking revenue separately from platform fees, cleaning income, and collected lodging tax, and the gross figure is frequently what a CPA needs rather than the net deposit.
• Property tax and insurance bills, particularly where they were paid out of escrow rather than directly.

“A CPA’s year-end questions are almost always the same questions. A good package answers them before they get asked.”

What property-level records matter most?

Two categories, and both trace back years rather than months.

Closing statements for anything bought, sold, or refinanced during the year. A settlement statement allocates the purchase across land, building, and closing costs, sets the starting basis, and identifies which costs are financing rather than acquisition. It is not reconstructible from a bank feed, and a CPA cannot set up depreciation without it.

Capital improvement invoices, with the date the work was placed in service. Each improvement is depreciated separately on its own schedule, so the CPA needs the property, the description, the total cost including labor, materials, permits, and delivery, and the date it went into service. A single project spread across three invoices should arrive as one line with all three invoices attached. The operational method is in tracking capital improvements property by property, and the question of whether a given job is an improvement at all is covered in repairs versus capital improvements.

What about 1099s and vendor records?

Two directions, and landlords usually only think about one of them.

Forms you received. 1099-MISC or 1099-K from booking platforms, property managers, or payment processors. These get matched against your reported income, so the CPA needs the actual forms, not just the deposits.

Forms you may need to issue. If you paid unincorporated contractors during the year, whether 1099s are required is a question for your CPA, and the practical point is that you cannot issue one in January without a W-9 you collected earlier. Collecting a W-9 before the first payment goes out is a five-minute habit that removes an entire category of year-end scramble. Keep a vendor list with what each was paid and whether a W-9 is on file.

Entity documents round it out: operating agreements, any ownership changes during the year, and new EINs. If a partnership return is involved, the books need to support it, which is a real constraint on some platforms. We cover that in what a partnership return needs from your books.

The Bottom Line

The package is: financials per entity including a balance sheet, full-year statements including December, mortgage statements and 1098s, closing documents for every transaction, improvement invoices with in-service dates, platform reports for short-term rentals, 1099 and W-9 records, and entity documents. Assemble it as the year runs rather than in March. What to keep beyond the current year, and for how long, is covered in landlord record retention.

Real Cents Organized is a bookkeeping firm. We produce and organize the year-end package; your CPA determines the filing position, the depreciation schedules, and whether any form is required in your situation.

Frequently asked questions

Does my CPA need a balance sheet if I only own rental property?

Yes, and it is the report landlords most often leave out. Loan balances, accumulated capital improvements, security deposits held for tenants, and owner contributions all live on the balance sheet and none of them appear on a profit and loss. Without it, the CPA is reconstructing those figures from statements, which takes longer and is easier to get wrong.

Can I just send my CPA the bank statements and let them sort it out?

You can, and it is usually the most expensive way to file. A CPA working from raw statements is doing bookkeeping at professional tax rates, without the property context to categorize accurately. It also means nobody reconciled the year, so errors surface at filing time rather than in the month they happened.

When should I start assembling the year-end package?

Through the year, not at the end of it. Closing statements, improvement invoices, and W-9s are all far easier to collect on the day they exist than in February. If the books are reconciled monthly, the year-end package is mostly a matter of running the reports and attaching documents you already filed.