You can still file. The IRS doesn’t require formal bookkeeping records. They require accurate numbers on your return. Your job is to figure out what those numbers are, which means reconstructing your financial history before you can file.

Start with bank statements. Your bank can provide statements going back several years, usually through online banking or by request. Download everything for the tax years you need to file. These statements show deposits (income) and payments (expenses). They’re the foundation for reconstructing your books.

Pull credit card statements too. Business expenses paid by card won’t show on your bank statements except as lump-sum payments to the card company. You need the detailed statements to see what you actually bought.

Gather whatever receipts and invoices you have. They help verify and categorize transactions, but don’t panic if you’re missing most of them. Bank and credit card records are usually enough to establish the numbers. The receipts matter more if you’re audited later.

Categorize every transaction. Income goes into revenue categories. Expenses get sorted into deductible categories like supplies, equipment, contractor payments, rent, utilities, insurance, and vehicle expenses. This is the tedious part. Two years of transactions means hundreds or thousands of line items to review and classify.

Separate personal from business. If you used the same accounts for both, you’ll need to identify which transactions were actually business-related. Only business income and expenses belong on your business tax return. Mixed-use items like a vehicle need percentage allocations.

Calculate your totals. Once everything is categorized, add up income and expenses by category. These totals populate your Schedule C, Schedule F, or whatever form applies to your business structure. Your net profit or loss flows to your personal return.

File the returns. If you’re filing for prior years, you’ll need to use that year’s forms, not the current year’s. The IRS website has prior-year forms available. E-filing isn’t always available for late returns, so you may need to mail them.

Expect to owe penalties and interest if you owed taxes for those years. The failure-to-file penalty is steeper than failure-to-pay, so filing late is still better than not filing at all. The IRS calculates what you owe once they process the return.

Consider getting help. Catch-up bookkeeping to reconstruct your records properly takes time and attention to detail. If you’re not confident categorizing transactions correctly, a bookkeeper can do the reconstruction and hand clean data to your tax preparer. The cost is usually less than the deductions you’d miss or the problems you’d create trying to do it yourself with gaps in your knowledge.

Two years behind feels overwhelming, but it’s fixable. The work is tedious, not complicated. Pull the statements, categorize the transactions, calculate the totals, file the returns. One step at a time until it’s done.