For U.S. firms, 1099 preparation is the annual job of identifying which vendors a client paid, confirming each one is reportable, and filing accurate forms with the IRS while sending copies to recipients on time. Payments for services to nonemployee vendors are reported on Form 1099-NEC, while rents, royalties, and certain attorney gross proceeds use Form 1099-MISC, and the two forms have different IRS filing deadlines. It looks simple until you start the work: vendor records are incomplete, taxpayer identification numbers are missing or wrong, and some payments that look reportable were actually made by card and already covered on a 1099-K. The forms themselves are short, but getting the underlying data clean is where most of the effort goes.
Accuracy and deadlines matter because both are tied to penalties. Late, incorrect, or missing forms can trigger per-form fines that add up fast across a vendor list, and a flood of corrected forms in February erodes the trust clients place in your firm. A repeatable process keeps the data work front-loaded, so filing season is a review-and-submit exercise rather than a scramble to chase W-9s while the clock runs.
When to run it
1099 filing season is seasonal but starts long before the deadline. The smart firms collect W-9s from new vendors throughout the year and at year-end, then run the preparation job in January when payment totals are final. The Form 1099-NEC filing and recipient furnishing deadline is January 31 (shifting to the next business day on a weekend), so the job should open in early January with a clear internal owner, usually the bookkeeper or account manager who knows the client’s vendors. Missing it carries tax compliance penalties that scale per form. Treat it as a recurring task that repeats every filing year.
How to run it in Tidyflow
Save this checklist as a reusable job template so every 1099 client runs the same way, pulling accounts payable records into a single reportable view. Each step becomes a subtask your team checks off, and the whole job can be set to recur each January with workflow management keeping due dates and ownership visible across the team. The W-9 collection and approval steps map directly to client requests: clients upload missing W-9s, confirm the vendor list and totals, and approve draft forms in their portal, with reminders sent automatically. Store filed copies, e-file confirmations, and written client approvals in document management so the full record sits in one place if a vendor or the IRS ever asks.
Common pitfalls
- Missing or outdated W-9s, which leave you guessing at a vendor’s legal name or TIN right before the deadline. Collect them at onboarding, not in January.
- Including payments already reported on a 1099-K. Amounts paid by credit card, debit card, or third-party networks like PayPal are excluded to avoid double reporting.
- Mis-classifying vendors. Corporations are generally excluded, but legal and medical payments often still require a form regardless of entity type.
- TIN mismatches between the W-9 and IRS records, which generate notices and possible backup withholding later.
- Filing totals that do not tie to the general ledger. Reconcile the preliminary 1099 report against vendor payment history before anything is submitted.
- Forgetting state obligations. Some states require direct 1099 filing and are not covered by the Combined Federal/State Filing (CF/SF) program, and state deadlines and thresholds can differ from federal. Confirm each state where the client has a filing requirement.