Checklist for Year End Review

Why Year-End Financial Review checklist is required?

“Use a year-end closure checklist to manage the way you wind up the year instead of panicking to complete your year-end accounting operations”.

This document can be used by the bookkeeper to verify that the end-of-year financial cycle is completed. Compiling financial statements might take a long time and cost if data is missing or accounts aren’t reconciled. This checklist assists bookkeepers in conducting a comprehensive assessment of the previous year’s financial operations.

Information required for Year-End-Review Checklist

Client’s complete information

• Compare the opening balances to the tax statements submitted the prior year.
• Check that the client’s master- details in the accounting system is current.

Review of Cashflows

The goal of analyzing your cash flow is to figure out exactly how much money is coming in and going out, as well as to predict any significant costs you may have in the future.

• List all existing sources of income.
• Organize and track all costs on a monthly and annual basis.
• Examine current income and costs (child’s schooling, elderly parent’s care, etc.) for patterns or projected changes.
• Ascertain that all cash revenues and expenses have been documented.
• Verify that the cash balance does not fall below zero at any point during the year.
• Check whether have you reconciled your physical cash on hand with your accounting system’s cash book?
• Determine any big costs that are scheduled for the coming year.
• Add or modify an emergency fund.

Settle/Reconcile Bank accounts

• Validate that the bank balance in the accounting system matches the bank statement.
• Validate that all credit card transactions are recorded and that the balances are recalculated.

Collect Due invoices

• Specify payment terms (e.g., due dates)
• Keep a record of the payment procedure.
• Remind people to make payments.
• Customers with past-due invoices should be contacted.
• Set up a payment plan with clients.

Check for Purchases and Sales Information

• Validate that all credit notes are recorded.
• Ascertain that all credit notes have been set up for bursary.

Check for Payroll and Tax Liabilities

• Check for any unreconciled amounts in the payroll liabilities.
• Make sure tax tables are updated.
• Validate if any pay withholdings exist?
• Determine any measures that may be taken to minimize taxes; our expert can help to determine tax benefits.
• Keep an eye on tax loss carry-forwards and think about harvesting losses to offset profits.

Gather Financial Statements

• Balance Sheet
• Income Statement
• Cashflow Statement

Check Inventory Account

• Have you taken a record of your end-of-year stocks and accounted for any shortages?
• Have you reviewed monthly inventory reports?

Organize Business Receipts

Disorganized receipts might lead to poor and erroneous accounting for your small business. Correct information should be added:

• Sort receipts into categories based on the kind of cost.
• Make use of labels and folders.
• Arrange receipts in chronological order.
• Receipts can be saved digitally on your computer or mobile device.