Year-end preparation: a small business checklist for a smooth tax season

Year-end doesn't have to be stressful. When your books are clean and organized, your accountant spends less time cleaning up and more time on actual tax planning — and that difference shows up directly on your invoice. Here's the year-end preparation checklist we walk every client through.

Before anything else, reconcile your bank accounts, credit cards, and loans against the actual statements through year-end. Every transaction should match a real document. Unreconciled accounts are the number-one cause of expensive year-end surprises.

Review your accounts receivable aging. Anything past 60 days needs a call now, not next quarter. Decide which invoices are collectible and whether any should be written off as bad debt before year-end.

Make sure your GST/PST filings match your books and that all remittances are current. Reconcile payroll so your T4s will tie out to what you actually remitted. Catching a discrepancy now is far cheaper than fixing it after filing.

Move any personal spending that slipped through the business into a proper shareholder-loan account. Clean this up before your accountant sees it and you'll avoid billable hours untangling it later.

Confirm that large equipment purchases were capitalized (not expensed) and that depreciation is set up correctly. If you hold inventory, do a physical count at year-end and record the value.

• Bank and credit-card statements through year-end
• Loan statements showing interest and principal
• Payroll summaries and T4/T4A slips
• GST/PST filing confirmations
• Receipts for major purchases and expenses

That's a lot of moving parts — which is exactly why we offer year-end preparation for Abbotsford and Fraser Valley businesses. We reconcile everything, build a complete working-paper package for your accountant, and hand you clean financial statements you can trust. Download our free year-end checklist, or book a consultation and let us take it off your plate entirely.