Another year has come and gone! While the end of another year intact should be a cause for celebration for small businesses, the weeks leading up to it is some of the busiest for small business owners. Internally, there will be a lot of preparation and some cramming that need to be done to get the business ready for the coming year. Getting behind on this will end up biting you in the butt when 2019 rolls in, so make sure your one step ahead as early as now. Here’s a helpful business year end checklist to make sure you’re on track with this:
Clean out your files
Being a small business owner involves a lot of work and with it, a lot of paperwork. A year’s worth of paperwork is no joke and, whether it be hard copies or digital files, it’s time to purge them out and get rid of the trash. Nothing says New Year than clean and organized folders. Be very careful with this, though! You wouldn’t want to accidentally throw out important papers, like documents you need for tax season. Speaking of…
Gather records for tax purposes
If you haven’t been organized in getting them all in one place, this is the time. While going through your files, gather all the important documents you may need for tax season – here’s a good resource on the paperwork you need to keep and present. Be aware of tax deadlines too! Here’s a list of business tax deadlines for 2018 tax filing.
Check and analyze your books
A lot of the planning that comes with a new year comes with reviewing how you did the past year and how you stand financially. Look through your financial books and then create a P&L report and a balance sheet. Through this, you can assess the aspects of your business’ profitability and how it can improve in the coming year. Coming into 2019 as you go over your business year end checklist, this should be your mindset: Profitability as the most important goal.
Review insurance policies and rates
Go over your insurance policies and decide if you want to keep the same rate/program or switch. Assess this together with your insurance company, but make sure you talk to other insurers as well to be able to make an informed decision as part of your business year end checklist.
Review payroll system and all company systems
Before the year ends, make sure that your payroll system is up to date. Double check if only current employees are on it, if pays are at where they were agreed upon, and everything else that need to be accounted for. Statistics show that roughly 40 percent of small businesses incur an average of $845 a year in IRS penalties, so be vigilant with this. This goes for all company systems, the last thing you want to happen are ex-employees still having access to them.
Look over goals from the past year, make new ones for the coming one
See where you are in terms of the 2018 goals you set at the beginning of the year. Was everything accomplished? If not, figure out why and generate a system or a plan to be able to accomplish it in the coming year. Doing this will help keep your business moving forward and maintaining success.
Reconcile accounts receivables
Before the year ends, make sure that all outstanding invoices and balances are paid by your clients. Getting this done before the beginning of the new year will improve financial reports and give you more cash flow. This is a great business year end checklist idea to be more prepared for what’s ahead.
Update vendor and client information
Go over your vendor list and client list and make sure all their information is up to date. If you are a business that deals with a lot of vendors and longtime clients, this may be tedious. Try to start with this early so as to avoid a stack of work closer to the end of the year.
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