CPA New Braunfels Alternative.The day the river closed.

Six hundred cubic feet, and then the gate.

The city closes the Comal when flow reaches 600 cubic feet a second. Between 100 and 500, recreation is allowed. River parks on the Comal are open daily from 6 in the morning until midnight, and lifeguards are on the city tube chute on weekends in May and daily from June into the middle of August. Those are the city's rules. They are also a calendar for anyone selling a day on the water.

A morning that starts open and ends closed is still a business morning. Deposits from the hours before the gate belong in that day. Averaging them into a normal week hides the spike and hides the stop. We would rather see the uneven day than a smooth one that never happened.

Every Texan has watched a plan change because the water did. We follow the same forecasts from our side of the state, and we do not pretend we stood on the bank. The books still have to tell the truth about the morning the gate came down.

What the books do with a stopped day.

Staff were scheduled. Food was prepped. A processor batch may still settle the next morning. None of that disappears because the chute closed at noon. We label the hours that were open and the hours that were not, so the margin for that day is a real margin.

If you comped tickets or moved people to another stretch of river, those choices belong in the notes for the day. They do not belong smeared across the week. A lender or a partner reading the month later should be able to see why Tuesday looked nothing like Wednesday.

Sales tax does not pause because the water did. Whatever was collected while the gate was open is still due on the 20th, at the combined 8.25 percent, on the county line the address actually sits in.

The letter you do not want.

The worry is not the closed river. The worry is a letter that arrives in a quiet month and asks where the tax went. A day that was never recorded is hard to explain six months later. A day that was recorded, even if it looks ugly, is easy to explain.

We keep the ugly day. We name it. We move on to the next one. That is the whole method, and it is kinder than reconstructing a summer from memory in March.

After the water drops.

When flow falls back into the allowed range, the parks fill again. The books should already be ready for that, because the closed day was finished while it was still fresh. Waiting until the season ends means every exception has to be remembered at once.

If your season is the river, the close belongs on a rhythm that respects the river. Not every day. A day you pick, every month, including the months the chute shut twice. We will keep that day with you.

The morning after the gate.

The next batch often arrives when the water has already dropped and the town looks ordinary again. It is tempting to call that batch a normal Wednesday. It is not. Part of it belongs to the morning the chute was still open. We split it before the week gets averaged into a line that never happened.

A thin afternoon is allowed to stay thin. Putting its costs onto the busy morning makes both days a story you cannot defend when a letter asks where the tax went. The ugly day stays ugly. That is the kindness. We would rather see the uneven morning than a smooth week that never happened.