Taxes and planning

It starts with your gross receipts for the period, subtracts the expenses you have tracked over the same dates, and runs what is left through the current year's tax constants for your entity type, your state and your filing status: federal income tax by bracket, self-employment tax (not applied to an S-corp), the QBI deduction under §199A where it applies, and your state's income tax. Meals are the one book-to-tax adjustment it makes, at fifty percent. The result is shown three ways — what the current quarter looks like, the annual estimate, and a weekly amount to set aside — and every screen says the same thing: an estimate, not advice; confirm with a licensed CPA before you file. DeskOps files nothing.

Federal estimated payments are due four times a year, and DeskOps carries the real dates rather than the rule of thumb: for the 2026 tax year, April 15, June 15, September 15 and January 15, 2027, each moved to the next business day when the fifteenth falls on a weekend or a federal holiday. The page shows the next one and how much of the annual estimate belongs to it. You still make the payment yourself, to the IRS and your state.

The CPA package is a PDF an accountant can start from: gross and net, expenses by category as a tax return asks for them, the quarterly estimates, a Schedule C view, depreciation and mileage, meals at fifty percent, and what the numbers came from and how fresh they are. Year-End Close adds the CSVs behind it and a checklist for the close. One engine produces the PDF, the CSVs and the emailed copy, so none of them can disagree. The 1099-NEC summary sits alongside it for the contractors you paid.

Schedule C Mapper puts your categories onto the lines of the form. The Estimated Tax Forecaster projects the year. Book Health checks the books for what an accountant would flag. Depreciation and Vehicle & office hold the worksheets for equipment, mileage at the IRS rate in force, and a home office. Year-End Close walks the close. Trial Balance and Balance Sheet are the accountant's views; What You're Owed is receivables by age; Journal Entry is for the adjustment your CPA asks for; Multi-Entity rolls up several businesses. Reasonable Salary, for an S-corp, is the workbench for the owner's wage.

Only if you turn it on, and only to the CPA name and email you add there. Three schedules: at each quarterly close, before each due date, or once at year end. The send runs on the server, once per tax period, and every delivery is logged; it is listed on the Communications screen with everything else DeskOps sends for you. The address it goes to is the one you set — Des cannot add a recipient.

A running cash line for the next 365 days, built from your known bills, your recurring costs and your recent pattern of money in, against a comfort floor you set. It names the thinnest day of the year ahead and the first day the line would dip below your floor, and lets you slide a bill to another date or drop in a what-if purchase to see where the line lands. What it does not do yet: model your year's seasons — that takes two full years of history, and until it has them the line repeats your recent weekly pattern and says so on the page, so the months you know are quiet will read high. It is an early forecast from what it can see, not a promise about next spring.

Seven measures: revenue, active customers, cost per lead (lower is better), Google rating, review count, ad spend, and monthly expenses (lower is better). One active goal per measure, each with a baseline, a target and a date; progress is read from your real numbers as they land, never typed in. Hitting one is called out on the page rather than passing silently.

A five-chapter document you can hand to a bank, a buyer or a bonding company: The Standing (what the business is worth), The Ledger of Record (year by year), Durability (how steady), The Owner's Position (what you can take), and Provenance & Gaps (what still needs proof). Every figure carries a chip saying how much of it a bank or a processor witnessed versus what came from your own books or was typed by hand, so a reader can tell a bank-witnessed dollar from a hand-entered one. It exports to PDF from the same numbers as the page, so the file and the screen cannot disagree.