Journal · preparation · 18 March 2026

What to gather before the first ledger sitting

You do not need a perfect archive. You need the year we agreed to look at, including the envelope you are slightly ashamed of.

People postpone a first sitting because the papers are not tidy. Tidiness is what the sitting is for. What helps is completeness for one year, not calligraphy. If you are booked for an opening ledger review, this is the bundle that makes the two hours useful.

Bring these

Passbooks or statements for every account the work and the household actually use. If you use cash from a tin, bring a note of what you remember putting in and taking out. Receipts and invoices for the year, sorted by month if you can bear it, and left in a stack if you cannot. A list of people you pay on a rhythm: landlord, market office, supplier, school, parents.

Also write, even roughly, what you paid yourself. Many self-employed professionals have never called that a draw. A figure in pencil is enough. We would rather argue with a pencil figure than with a blank.

Leave these at home

Years older than the one we named, unless a loan or a lease from that time is still being paid. Catalogues, spare forms, and other people's papers that landed in your drawer. You can always fetch a missing slip later. You cannot fetch an hour we spent sorting the wrong decade.

If you have almost nothing written down, come with the passbook anyway. Say so when you write to us. We will use the first sitting to see what the bank shows and what only you remember, and we will tell you honestly if a full annual plan should wait until you have kept three months of simple notes.

If the note sounds like your year, request a sitting or look at the engagements.