Today is the first of October and your year end accounting should be top-of-mind. Yep. You read that right. Top. Of. Mind. But back away from the panic button! The intent here isn’t to scare, but rather prepare! (Apologies for the unintentional rhyme.) With just over 90 days left in the calendar year—which many small business owners use as a fiscal year—planning is the name of the game to make sure your year end is what it’s supposed to be: enjoyable. Like winter, year end accounting is coming. It’s Actually Less than 90 Days Away You know how everybody is currently asking where the summer went? Well that sentiment is even stronger as we head in to the tail end of the calendar. To quote just about every big box retailer, “The holidays will be here before you know it.” And that often spells lost days. We’re not just talking about weekends. For business owners in the U.S., Thanksgiving usually results in half of the Wednesday before slipping away and minimal activity Thursday and Friday. Boom, 2.5 days gone—and we’re not even taking Cyber Monday into account! Throw in Boxing Day, Christmas, Hanukkah, that weird week before New Year’s Eve and a few more and you can see clearly that the number of business days remaining in the year is actually way less than you thought. And You’re Going to be Busy For most business, now through the end of the year is usually a busy time. With summer holidays behind us, productivity tends to surge, budgets for the coming year are in development and determining seasonal help might be something you have to consider (depending on your line of business). These factors and others mean putting off all of your year end accounting tasks to the last minute is ill advised. So stay current on things like expenses and invoices and the end of the year will be far less taxing. (Pun thoroughly intended.) So What Can You Do to Prep for Year End Accounting? As mentioned, staying current and not letting things pile up will make your year end accounting activities much more manageable. Make it a habit to take a picture of an expense receipt the moment you make the purchase. And if you have an accountant who helps out with your tax prep, consider scheduling a meeting with them between now and early December. Doing so will help them get a feel for how your year has gone and it will also help you reduce the amount of time you all spend together coming filing season! In that same vein, a historical look at the year-to-date as well as a Q1-Q2-Q3 analysis will help you forecast what the Q4 might look like. (And guess what! You can generate these reports in Kashoo! Learn more about reading a P&L.) Have your own great tip for getting out in front of year end accounting activities? Share it on Twitter.
