It's January 10th. Your accountant wants the annual tax pack by Friday. You've been disciplined all year with monthly packs. Goal: assemble the annual pack in 15 minutes.
This is what the monthly discipline pays off for.
Minutes 0–3 — Gather the monthly packs
Open `/Archive/Receipts/<year>/`, `/Archive/Statements/<year>/`, `/Archive/Invoices/<year>/`. Each has 12 monthly packs.
If you've been disciplined, this is just opening folders. If you're catching up, this is where the bigger time investment goes.
Minutes 3–8 — Merge each category to annual
Merge the 12 monthly receipts packs into `<year>_Receipts_Annual.pdf`. Repeat for statements and invoices.
Three annual files. Five minutes of work. The merge order is chronological by filename.
Minutes 8–11 — Compress and redact
Compress each annual pack. Reductions of 70%+ are typical. Then redact anything sensitive that's leaving your machine — account numbers, personal data not needed for tax.
Three minutes for both passes. The redacted versions are what the accountant gets.
Minutes 11–15 — Send
Compose email to your accountant. Attach the three annual packs (each should be under 10 MB after compression). One-paragraph summary of the year's notable items.
Fifteen minutes from start to send. The accountant has clean, complete, organised records — and you have your evening back.
FAQ
What if I didn't do monthly packs through the year?
Catch-up version: gather all receipts/statements/invoices into the year folder, organise chronologically, then run the same merge. Add 1–2 hours for the gathering and ordering.
Should I include working notes or just the documents?
Documents only for the pack. Notes go in a separate cover letter or summary. Keep the data clean from commentary.
What about supporting schedules (depreciation, mileage logs)?
Add as additional PDFs. Merge all supporting schedules into one supplemental document and include alongside the main packs.
How do I handle entity-level vs personal returns?
Separate packs per entity. Don't merge business and personal records — your accountant needs them separable for filing.
Fifteen minutes, three clean files, accountant happy. Speedrun your tax pack in Flint.