How CPA firms request an invoice from clients
By Arthur Teboul, DokuTrak · Published
In short
Ask for the sales invoices the business issued in the last weeks of December and the first weeks of January, plus the list of invoices still unpaid at December 31. They set revenue cut-off: which sales belong to the year you are closing and which to the next, and which receivables sit on the balance sheet.
Why CPA firms need an invoice
On the accrual method, revenue generally belongs to the year the work was done or the goods delivered, not the year the cash came in, so invoices around December 31 are where revenue slips between years. Deposits billed before the work starts are usually a liability until earned. A cash-method business reports revenue when paid, but the open invoice list still matters for the balance sheet and for spotting a payment received in December and recorded in January.
What exactly to ask for
Copies of sales invoices dated from mid-December to mid-January, the accounts receivable aging report at December 31, and the invoices for any customer deposit or prepayment received before year-end. Ask for PDFs from the invoicing software with the service or delivery dates visible, and the aging report as a PDF or spreadsheet.
What to check when it arrives
- The service or delivery date on each invoice, not only the invoice date, puts it in the right year.
- The aging report total at December 31 agrees with accounts receivable in the books.
- Deposits billed in December for January work are recorded as unearned, not as this year’s revenue, when the business uses the accrual method.
Email to send your client
Replace the bracketed parts. The same text fits in the message of a DokuTrak request (up to 1,000 characters).
Subject: Invoices around the turn of the year
Hi [Client name],
To get last year’s revenue right, I need to look at the invoices around the turn of the year.
Could you send me the invoices the business issued from mid-December to mid-January, as PDFs from your invoicing software, plus the report of invoices still unpaid on December 31? If you billed any customer a deposit before the work started, please flag that invoice.
The dates of the work matter as much as the invoice dates, so if an invoice does not show when the job was done, a quick note is enough.
Could you send them by [date]? If the unpaid invoices report is hard to find, tell me which software you use and I will point you to it.
Thank you, [Your name]
Ask once. DokuTrak does the chasing.
- Your client uploads from one link, with no account and no password.
- Reminders go out on a schedule, by default 2, 5, 10 and 14 days after the request, until the file arrives.
- With AI review switched on in your workspace (it is off by default), each upload gets a first pass that flags a file that is not an invoice or an unreadable or blurry scan. It says so when it is not sure.
- You accept every file or mark it for re-upload, and your client gets the note by email. The AI never accepts a file.