This guide is for owners and staff at small CPA and bookkeeping firms who prepare 1099s for many small business clients in QuickBooks Online. The usual problem is timing, because every client's forms are due on the same day, right when year-end closes and tax prep begin. Below is a 1099 checklist built for that problem: a November-to-January calendar, a per-client checklist you can run in QuickBooks Online, and what changed for 2026.
Also related: Who is a 1099 employee?
What changed for 2026 payments
Two rule changes affect this season, and both come from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Clients will ask about them, so it helps to have the answers ready. If a client needs the basics first, share our guide to what a 1099 form is.
| Rule | Before | For 2026 payments | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Form 1099-NEC threshold | $600 or more | $2,000 or more | IRS 1099-NEC FAQ |
| Most Form 1099-MISC boxes (rents, other income) | $600 or more | $2,000 or more | IRS instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC |
| Royalties | $10 or more | $10 or more (unchanged) | Same instructions |
| Gross proceeds paid to attorneys | $600 or more | $600 or more (unchanged) | Same instructions |
| Form 1099-K from third-party payment platforms | Was set to drop to $600 | More than $20,000 and more than 200 transactions; card payments have no minimum | IRS 1099-K release |
Note on attorney payments: Payments for an attorney's legal services generally go on Form 1099-NEC, with the $2,000 threshold applying to 2026 payments. Gross proceeds paid to an attorney in connection with legal services generally go on Form 1099-MISC, with the separate $600 threshold still applying. The reporting form depends on the nature of the payment.
The higher threshold means fewer forms for many clients, but it doesn't remove the work. You still need a W-9 on file, and you still need clean books to know who crossed $2,000. Contractors also still report all of their income, with or without a form. For self-employed clients working out what they owe on that income, our 1099 tax calculator guide walks through the math.
One more change sits on the firm's side. Intuit is replacing QuickBooks Online Accountant with Intuit Accountant Suite on December 31, 2026, so confirm where your team will run 1099 prep before January starts.
A November-to-January calendar for your firm
Most 1099-NEC recipient and IRS filings share the same January deadline. But 1099-MISC has different filing deadlines, and every client's forms need to be reviewed before the relevant dates. The firms that avoid a January crunch spread the work across three months, with a clear target for each one.
| When | What the firm does | Done when |
|---|---|---|
| Early November | Send each client a short request: new contractors this year, missing W-9s, any payments made outside the books | Every client has replied or been followed up |
| Mid-November | Run a vendor payments report for January to October in each client's file and flag likely 1099 vendors | Each client has a draft 1099 list |
| December | Fix vendor coding, mark 1099 vendors in QuickBooks Online, and chase remaining W-9s | No 1099 vendor is missing a tax ID or address |
| First week of January | Close December, rerun the list for the full year, and review totals against the $2,000 threshold | A reviewer has signed off on each client's list |
| Mid-January | Send each client their final list for approval, then e-file | Client approval is saved in the client file |
| February 1, 2027 | Deadline for 2026 Forms 1099-NEC to recipients and the IRS | 1099-NEC forms filed and recipient copies sent; 1099-MISC filing deadlines tracked separately. |
February 1, 2027 is the deadline for 2026 Forms 1099-NEC, both for recipient copies and IRS filing. Most Form 1099-MISC recipient statements are also due February 1, but statements reporting amounts in boxes 8 or 10 are due February 16. Form 1099-MISC is due to the IRS by March 1 if filed on paper or March 31 if filed electronically.
Adding the December and January steps to your month-end close checklist keeps them from slipping behind year-end work.
The per-client checklist in QuickBooks Online
Run these checks for each client, in this order. Each one feeds the next, so skipping ahead usually means redoing work later. For clients you took on this year, start with our bookkeeping checklist for new clients, since their vendor history may predate your file.
- Confirm the vendor list: Make sure each contractor is set up as a vendor and tracked for 1099s. Intuit explains how to set up contractors and track them for 1099s.
- Collect W-9s: Confirm that each reportable vendor has a completed W-9 on file. Check the legal name, tax classification, taxpayer identification number and address against the form. Follow up on missing or incomplete W-9s before filing. If a contractor doesn't provide a valid taxpayer identification number, backup withholding may apply. The 2026 law also raises the reporting and backup-withholding threshold to $2,000 for certain payments. Don't treat the reporting threshold as a blanket exemption from withholding; check the applicable IRS rules before processing payments.
- Check payment methods: Payments made by payment card or through a third-party payment network are generally reported by the processor on Form 1099-K, rather than by the business on Form 1099-NEC or 1099-MISC. Check that these payments are recorded correctly in QuickBooks Online and excluded from the 1099 totals. Review the non-reportable payments list rather than assuming every card or payment-app transaction has been identified correctly.
- Fix vendor coding: Look for contractor payments sitting in the wrong account, under a misspelled vendor, or in uncategorized expense. Two versions of the same vendor can split one person's total under the threshold.
- Exclude corporations where the rules allow: Payments to corporations generally don't need a 1099, but payments to attorneys and for medical or health care services still do. Confirm the entity type on each W-9 rather than guessing from the name.
- Run the 1099 prep: Use Prepare 1099s in QuickBooks Online to map accounts to boxes and review the totals for each vendor.
- Get client sign-off, then file: Send the final list, save the approval, and e-file. Most firms will need to e-file anyway, since businesses filing 10 or more information returns in a year must file electronically.
Once a client's forms are filed, save the final list and the client's approval in the client file. Late or wrong forms carry penalties per form, and the IRS penalty amounts rise the later a correction is filed.
How Aqqrue helps with 1099 season
Steps 3 and 4 take time because they require reviewing a full year of transactions across every client file. Before a firm can trust its 1099 reports, it needs to know that contractor payments are assigned to the right vendors and expense accounts.
Aqqrue is an AI work studio for accountants and bookkeepers working in QuickBooks Online. It can review client books across the year, identify potential contractor-payment coding issues and prepare proposed accounting corrections for your team to review. This helps firms address problems in the underlying books before they generate their 1099 lists.
Rather than repeating the same review manually in each file, firms can run this work across their client roster. Aqqrue also uses the firm's past transactions for each client as context, helping it apply previously established coding patterns.
Nothing posts to QuickBooks Online until your team reviews and approves the proposed work. Your team remains responsible for confirming vendor details, collecting W-9s, checking payment methods and entity types, reviewing the final 1099 totals, obtaining client approval and filing the forms.
If you'd like to start before January, see how Aqqrue reviews client books.