The Top 15 Financial Records You Need to Establish Child Support (When Dad Is Self-Employed or Owns a Business)

If your child's father is self-employed or owns a business, "I don't know what he really makes" is the single biggest obstacle to a fair child-support order.

Self-employed parents control how money is received, recorded, spent, and reported. Business revenue gets deposited into personal accounts. Personal expenses get run through business cards. Income drops on paper the moment a support case starts. If you only look at a pay stub or a single tax return, you're seeing a fraction of the picture — and the court will only award support based on what gets proven.

This guide gives you the roadmap.

The Top 15 Financial Records You Need is a 23-page, attorney-written guide identifying exactly which financial records to request — and what to actually look for once they arrive — when you're establishing an initial child-support order against a father who is self-employed, owns a business, or both.

What's Inside

• The Top 15 record categories, from the Domestic Relations Financial Affidavit and personal bank statements through business tax returns, payment-processing platforms, cryptocurrency accounts, loan applications, and lifestyle evidence
• For each category: the specific documents to request, and a "what to look for" checklist of the red flags that actually matter
• A practice-note callout on every section flagging the single issue attorneys watch for most
• A side-by-side comparison framework for testing what he claims against what the records show
• The line-by-line review rule and a plain-language explanation of commingled funds
• A final review checklist you can use before you ever walk into a courtroom
• The four questions that control the entire financial review, boiled down to one page
• A short section on using your own firsthand knowledge of the relationship as lifestyle evidence
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Who This Is For

Mothers preparing to establish an initial child-support order, on their own, or working alongside an attorney, where the father is self-employed, owns one or more businesses, or mixes W-2 income with business income. It's written for a non-lawyer to actually use, without legal jargon standing in the way.

What This Is Not

This is an educational guide, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. It focuses on identifying and analyzing financial records for an initial support determination — it is not a discovery-procedure manual (subpoenas, motions to compel, and enforcement are outside its scope) and it is not a substitute for advice from a licensed attorney about the facts of your specific case. The guide is Georgia-focused and references Georgia's child-support framework (O.C.G.A. § 19-6-15).

Why This Guide

This guide was written by Tanya Mitchell Graham, Esq. of The Law Office of TMG, PC, drawing on the same document-driven method used in her family-law practice: find the records, follow the money, and let the numbers establish the truth.

Instant digital download. 23-page PDF. Read it once before your first meeting with an attorney, or keep it beside you throughout the process.