LMH Financial Services

Year-end bookkeeping tasks: 7 tips for closing your business’ books

We are approaching what is probably the busiest time of year for many business owners! The rush to finish up any open projects before the year ends and to secure next year's projects early. Adding to that, business owners are responsible for making sure that their financial books are in order and ready for tax filing. This checklist is meant to help you organize and prepare yourself for year-end closing of those books.

1. Review all of your payroll information for the year
- Benefit changes
- Deferred compensation
- Employee information, wages and deductions
- Record any bonuses, raises or withholding changes
- Time-off balances

2. Complete the necessary forms for your employees and contractors
- W-2s for employees
- 1099s for contractors

3. Inventory your materials and supplies

4. Organize your business receipts

5. Review your payables and receivables

6. Reconcile all of your accounts
- Bank accounts
- Credit card accounts
- Loan accounts

7. Create a game plan for next year
- Are you making any changes to your payment systems?
- Are you changing employee benefits?
- Are you implementing more streamlined processes to increase your profitability?
You'll want to be sure to plan for any tax implications a these decisions might have and plan ahead. Look ahead and get motivated for a new year!

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10 important items to keep on your monthly bookkeeping checklist:

1. Record any incoming cash payments. So the customers have paid you, now what? Make sure that you record the payment in your QuickBooks software
2. Update your accounts payable! It's so important to stay on top of your customer balances so you can avoid cash flow issues.
3. Reconcile your accounts. This should be done in a timely manner every month. I like to see this done within the first 2 weeks of each month. It's far easier to do when the financial details are fresh in your memory.
4. Review petty cash. Not all businesses keep petty cash, but for those that do, this is the most likely place for fraudulent activity to occur. Owner's often overlook this cash account and rarely reconcile or review the account to see if there are any amounts that have come up missing.
5. Look at your fixed assets. Watch these items for increased usage that might effect it's useful life.
6. Count any inventory you have on hand. You never want a low inventory to slow your sales, so take a moment to count up what you have on hand. You also don't want to keep too much of an item on hand, so maybe it's time to run a special on that item that's been sitting on the shelf. Boost your sales and clean up that inventory room.
7. Organize and Review all of your statements. Familiarize yourself with your company's financial health. You should know how your business is performing each month. The numbers don't lie! We often see business owner's come in with a mental picture of how the business is performing, but they find out that mental picture they had isn't representative of how the business is actually performing.
8. Check on revenues and expenses. Take a look at what expenses can be reduced or eliminated and what revenues could be increased.
9. Review the details before closing out your books. You want to be sure that all questions are addressed and all errors are fixed before you close out the month. The last thing you want to do is revisit or try to locate an error after the books are closed out for the month.
10. Prepare for next month. Items 1-9 will help you in making smarter business decisions in the following months. You should have a gameplan going forward.

Welcome to my page! My name is Lindsay. I am a professional bookkeeper/accountant with over 20 years of experience in the accounting industry. I have worked for large corporations as well as small businesses. My husband is a small business owner as well. I get the struggles that business owners face on a daily basis and the planning that must implemented along the way. I hope that you will find relevant information for your business on my page. Feel free to reach out to me for help with your accounting needs.