A Quick Year-End Checklist

You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be Great.

I want you to know that I believe in you. I believe in your intelligence and ability. If you are staring at the wall feeling really unsure about what to do to get your books in order, take a deep breath. Here are some simple actions steps for you.

The most important step is the first one:

1) Reconcile Everything:
Bank accounts, credit cards, Paypal or Stripe accounts. Get your statements and make sure your books have all the transactions recorded.

2) Review & Organize your bookkeeping:
Verify your income and review your expenses. Categorize all the transactions. Don't leave anything hanging in the "Uncategorized" or "Ask My Accountant" accounts.
Update your information (purchase price, date and a description) for any large purchases over $2500. Your tax preparer will want to know about those!
Conduct an inventory if you have one.
Review your payroll and make sure you have a payroll summary for the whole year with your tax paperwork.

3) Review your reports:
Go over your Profit and Loss and Balance Statements. Run them as a comparison with last year and look at your year-over-year data for trends.

4) Gather Tax Documents:

As this paperwork comes in, gather W-2’s, 1099’s and other tax related forms. Get your bookkeeping reports for your business, mileage and home office deduction info.