Caught a missing testing date file two weeks before the accountants needed it

I've been trying to figure out where I fit on the service side, and what I've landed on for now is document coordination for small operators. This is the first engagement where I clearly earned the fee.

Single asset fund, 22 unit rehab in a designated tract, four investors. The operator is good at building and keeps records the way most builders keep records, which is a truck full of paper and a phone full of photos. My scope was to assemble the file the CPA would need, and the reporting requirements for qualified opportunity funds got expanded under the 2025 law, so there's more to hand over than there used to be.

What I found. Nothing in the file supported the asset composition on either semiannual testing date. There were bank statements and there were invoices, and there was no schedule tying cash held on those specific dates to the written working capital plan. The operator's answer was that the money was obviously all going into the building, which is probably true and is not the same as documented.

So we spent 31 hours reconstructing it from bank records and lien waivers, invoice by invoice, back to March. Billed 3,700. The operator's CPA said the reconstruction was usable, and whether the underlying position holds is her call against her rules, not mine.

What nearly broke it: two subs had been paid in cash from an account that also paid for the operator's personal truck. Untangling those four transactions took six of the 31 hours.

What I'd keep: a standing monthly hour with the operator instead of a scramble twice a year. I proposed it at 400 a month and he took it, mostly because he'd just watched what the alternative cost.