Outsourced ControllerBills, vendors and W-9 forms before the first payment
You're looking for what should happen before you pay a new vendor, and for a reason January keeps catching you off guard. Tax CFO Steven Palmieri leads this work, and Steven and his team build the answer into how vendors are added. Get a W-9 on file before the first check. That one habit removes most of the January scramble.
Find missing forms
The path a bill takes
Every bill should travel the same road. It's received, checked against what was ordered, approved by the right person, scheduled, paid and recorded. When a bill skips a step, the skipped step is usually the one that mattered. A bill that wasn't checked gets paid twice. A bill that wasn't recorded shows up as a surprise at month end.
Keeping to the path also makes the monthly close quicker, because every payment already has a trail.
Why a W-9 comes first
A Form W-9 is a short page where a vendor gives you their name, their business type and their taxpayer identification number. Collect it before the first payment to any contractor or other vendor who might need a 1099. That's the moment the vendor expects to be asked, and it takes them a couple of minutes.
Wait until January and the same request turns into a chase. People move, change their address or stop answering. The year-end forms have a fixed due date, and a missing number can't be invented.
What a missing form can cost
If a payee doesn't give a taxpayer number in the required way, the payer may have to withhold at a flat 24 percent and send it to the IRS. That is called backup withholding. It's a nuisance for you and a surprise for the vendor, and a W-9 on file prevents it entirely.
The 1099 line
Form 1099-NEC has a reporting floor, and for payments made in 2026 it sits at $2,000 paid to one contractor within the year. The forms are due January 31. The figure is stated for the year because it changed recently, and the current IRS instructions are the place to confirm it each fall. Our job is to check the vendor list against that floor before the year ends, not after. Anyone who might cross it should already have a form on file, and the rest of the year's calendar sits on the filing calendar page, where each date has an owner.
A monthly look at the vendor list
After each close, we scan the vendor list for three things. Who was paid this month without a form on file? Who is approaching the reporting line for the year? Whose payment details changed? Each answer produces a short to-do, and the list is usually brief.
How to ask without annoying anyone
Make it part of how new vendors are added. When someone is set up to be paid, the form is part of that step. Say it plainly. "We need a W-9 before we can pay you" is ordinary business language, and nobody takes offense. Vendors who balk are worth knowing about before you've paid them. Sometimes a refusal is just a busy week. Sometimes it tells you something about the vendor, and either way you learn it at no cost to the books.
This works best alongside a clear approval path, which who approves what lays out.
On the calendar. The one recurring check this page adds is a November look at every vendor near the reporting line, so that any missing form is collected with weeks to spare, ahead of the January forms listed on the filing calendar.
A W-9 collected when the vendor is first set up is one less scramble when the January forms are due.