Getting a W-9 out of a vendor before the first payment
January is the wrong moment to ask. By then the work is over, the vendor has been paid, and the request reads as an imposition from a stranger. The ledger already knows who is new, because somebody created a vendor record in order to pay them. Chasing the form at that moment and holding the payment in BILL until it arrives is most of the job. A missing identification number raises no error anywhere. It just removes that vendor from the reporting wizard in January without saying a word about it.
Everything is finished and the return still cannot be filed, because the signature authorisation has not come back.
The trial balance is the centre of this work, and most of the repeated labour is getting source material into a shape the trial balance can accept. Statements arrive as PDFs, receipts arrive as photographs, and bank data arrives through an aggregator that authenticates against a bank which changes its login flow without notice.
- QuickBooks Online
- BILL
- Gmail
When this is the wrong thing to build
Pick something else if the client pays contractors by card or through a payment platform, since the processor reports those amounts and they do not belong on a 1099-NEC at all. Collecting forms anyway is tidy housekeeping, and it is not the compliance protection it appears to be.
The constraint that shapes it
Tax return information is governed by a statute that makes disclosure or use outside preparation a criminal matter, with a parallel civil penalty, and consent has to be obtained in a prescribed form naming the recipient and the purpose. More on how this sector works.
A list of things that are missing, worked until it is empty. Read what this shape is, or start from one of these.
- Chasing a compliance file to complete
- Chasing a referral fee through to a closing you cannot see
- Asking for the replenishment before the retainer runs to zero
- Chasing medical records until the set is complete
- Getting a deposition on the calendar of every party
- Chasing the warranty credit the distributor has not issued
- How do I collect a W-9 before paying a new contractor?
- What happens if a vendor never sends back a W-9?
- Why is a contractor missing from the QuickBooks 1099 list?
- Can I hold a bill payment until the vendor tax form arrives?
- Do I need a W-9 for a vendor paid by credit card?
Back to accounting and bookkeeping, or see how this is priced and scoped.