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By Tammy Hoang, Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor | Irvine Bookkeeping — Small Business Bookkeeping Orange County | (949) 482-2790 Almost every Orange County marketing agency uses freelancers. Copywriters, graphic designers, media buyers, web developers, video editors, social media managers — the modern agency model runs on a mix of employees and contractors. The problem is that many marketing agency owners are not clear on where the line is, and the IRS has a very specific ans

The 1099-NEC year-end checklist for marketing agencies exists to prevent one specific nightmare: it is January 15, your agency has 20 freelancers on the books, three missing W-9s, and contractor payments scattered across QuickBooks, PayPal, and a personal card from Q2. The 1099-NEC January 31 deadline is two weeks away. If you have read our earlier posts on the 2026 threshold change from $600 to $2,000 and how to track 1099-NEC in QuickBooks Online, this is the final step — c

Run a marketing agency and you live this every year. A freelance designer for the rebrand. A copywriter for the email sequence. A video editor for the launch. A media buyer running paid social. A white-label developer you subcontracted for a client site. You pay them fast — across Bill.com, PayPal, ACH, sometimes a personal card when a project is urgent. Then January arrives and you cannot remember who crossed the $2,000 1099-NEC threshold or whose W-9 you never collected. Th

Marketing agencies pay dozens of freelancers every year — designers, copywriters, developers, video editors, media buyers. Starting January 1, 2026, the IRS changed how Form 1099-NEC works under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The 1099-NEC 2026 changes raised the reporting threshold from $600 to $2,000. If your marketing agency issues freelancer payments that meet the new threshold, you need to understand what changed, what the penalties are for getting it wrong, and why book