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.

Until you tell DeskOps two things, the headline says "Set aside by" the next deadline: the tax on this year's profit so far, spread over the deadlines left, and it says plainly that payments you already made aren't subtracted. Enter last year's total tax and the federal estimated payments you have made in the Forecaster and save them. The headline then shows what to pay by the next deadline to be safe from the federal underpayment penalty: a quarter of last year's tax for each deadline so far (110% of it when last year's income was over $150,000), less what you have paid. Beside it you still see the best estimate of this year's tax. It covers the federal penalty only, not your state, and you make the payment yourself. Under it, one line gives your state's own installment rule where DeskOps has read it from the state (for example Georgia's 70% of this year's tax), or says it hasn't been verified for your state.

Both are optional. The first is how many children under 17 you will claim: DeskOps takes the child tax credit off the federal income tax in your estimate, at the IRS figure for the year ($2,200 per child for 2026), reduced for higher incomes the way the law says. The second is other W-2 wages in your household, such as a spouse's job or a job of your own. Your business profit is taxed on top of those wages, so the estimate becomes the extra tax your business adds; the wages' own tax is left to that job's withholding. Retirement contributions and your own health insurance are not asked yet.

Above a certain income, the QBI deduction on a business is limited by the wages it pays employees, so a crew can raise it by thousands of dollars. Your books show payroll, but that category can also hold payroll taxes, which don't count, so DeskOps asks rather than assumes. Answer "yes, that's what I paid employees" and it keeps using your books' payroll as the year goes on, or enter your own figure. It only asks when the answer would change your estimate, and the Taxes page, the tax PDF, the emailed report and Des all use the same answer.

A loan payment from your bank account is part interest and part paying down the loan, and only the interest is a business expense. Your bank feed doesn't say which is which, so DeskOps never counts a loan payment as an expense on its own. It holds the payment and asks you once how much of it was interest; your loan statement shows that figure. DeskOps remembers your answer for that lender and splits every later payment to them the same way, to the cent. The interest becomes an expense and the rest is left out, because repaying a loan isn't a cost. Payments you or your bookkeeper entered yourselves are left exactly as entered.

Every lender you have answered is listed with the share of each payment that is interest. Change it by entering the interest on a recent payment from your loan statement, and DeskOps uses the new share for payments from then on. Payments that were already split keep the split they have — nothing you already booked moves without you seeing it — and the accountant's files show the interest as an expense and the rest as repaying the loan.

The CPA package is a PDF an accountant can start from. Page one, marked "Prepared for CPA review", lists the business, entity, period, any missing or late source, and the contents. Then: gross and net, expenses by category, quarterly estimates, a Schedule C view, depreciation and mileage, meals at fifty percent, and where each number came from. Year-End Close adds the CSVs and a close checklist. Review the stated basis with your accountant; a balanced export does not prove every record is complete. Three journal files are offered: QuickBooks Online (create the accounts there first), Xero US (matching account codes, Tax Exempt rate), and a spreadsheet copy with totals. The 1099-NEC summary lists the contractors you paid and whether each has a W-9; card payments stay off it, and DeskOps does not decide who is a contractor or file anything.

Enter the amount, date and account the money came from. This records a withdrawal you already made; it does not move money. If a bank withdrawal is tagged as an owner draw, use Confirm draw on that line instead. Both paths update recorded draws and journal line 3100 as equity, never a business expense. Open Recorded draws for the date, account and Undo. Undo removes the draw and its journal together; a closed month must be reopened first. Until you record a draw, Wealth says “Excludes owner draws: none recorded”; that does not mean you took nothing out.

Schedule C maps expense categories; Forecaster projects tax; Book health checks the books. Depreciation and Vehicle hold equipment, mileage and home-office worksheets. Year-end walks the close. Trial balance exports the balanced journal, separates known sales tax, discloses unknown amounts and lists repaid loan principal separately. Recorded owner draws appear on equity line 3100; unrecorded draws are disclosed. Its clearing line is an import offset, not a bank balance. Balance sheet shows the accountant view; What you're owed ages receivables as of any date you pick, counting invoices paid since; Journal entry records CPA adjustments; Entities rolls up businesses. Salary is the S-corp owner-wage workbench.

Pick a checking or savings account and a month. You type two numbers from your bank statement, the opening balance and the ending balance, and DeskOps adds every line your bank posted to that account that month. If the two agree, you mark the month reconciled; if they differ, the difference is shown and you save it with a note that explains it, so nothing is hidden. Lines still pending at the end of the month are not counted, because a statement shows posted lines only. Months go in order, starting with the first full month DeskOps has read from your bank, and each month opens with the last month's ending balance. DeskOps never sees your statement; the balances are the ones you type.

Only the owner can close the books; a bookkeeper cannot request a close in DeskOps yet. First reconcile each bank account against its statement, review unmatched deposits and unfinished invoices, and resolve missing or uncategorized expenses. These are review steps, not a live monthly checklist. Choose the month and confirm the lock. DeskOps checks before closing and explains a refusal; if it cannot finish, read the month’s status before trying again. A closed month blocks changes to its transactions, expenses and invoices. To correct it, choose the locked month, give a reason longer than 20 characters and a reference, then confirm Reopen. Reopening is limited to three times per month and cannot happen within an hour of locking. Review the correction and lock it again.

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.

Choose a starting date and time in UTC, then Show changes. The list covers payment, expense, invoice and invoice-payment additions, edits, deletions and refund changes. Download all changes as CSV for the review. After a successful journal export, Use last journal export recalls its starting time on this device for this business; another device needs the date entered again. This is a read-only change log with record references and changed field names, not a before-and-after balance comparison. A failed read is shown as an error, never as an empty history.

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.

Five measures you can set today: revenue, active customers, cost per lead (lower is better), 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. Google rating and review count goals need a Google Business Profile connection, which isn't available yet, so they can't be set today; one made earlier shows a dash and says it isn't tracked, never a zero. 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.

No. DeskOps estimates selected income and self-employment taxes using your business, state and filing settings. State-specific limitations and unmodeled local taxes can apply. An income-tax estimate is not a complete calculation of sales or use tax, payroll withholding, unemployment, franchise or gross-receipts taxes, property taxes, excise taxes, or every entity election and multi-state obligation. DeskOps does not file or remit taxes. Review the taxes that apply to your business with your accountant; do not interpret a missing figure as zero owed.

You enter the default percentage; the starting value is zero, not a verified exemption. Review the applicable rate and taxable items before sending each quote or invoice. DeskOps does not automatically determine the correct jurisdiction or exemption. Sales tax details downloads payment-level information and shows known collected tax less customer refunds. Unknown amounts are labelled for review, including older deposit invoices whose tax was not separated. Remittances and jurisdiction-specific filing balances are not tracked in this report. The accountant portal offers the same download after selecting a client.