- 1October: kick off the close calendar. Schedule the actual close, identify who owns each deliverable.
- 2November: catch up on monthly closes. If any prior month is still open, close it now. Year-end on top of stale months is a nightmare.
- 3November: send AR aging reminders. Collect what you can before December 31.
- 4Early December: final inventory count if applicable. Schedule the physical count.
- 5Mid-December: finalize bonus, commission, and benefit accruals. These need to land in the right period.
- 6December 31: official cutoff. Last day for transactions to count toward this fiscal year.
- 7January 1-15: reconciliations and adjustments. Bank, credit card, payroll, accruals, depreciation.
- 8January 15-31: financial package and CPA handoff. Clean trial balance, reconciliations, supporting docs.
Start in October
Year-end should not be a four-week sprint in December. By starting in October, you have time to identify and fix issues before they become crises. The October to December window is about discovery: what accounts need adjustments, what documentation is missing, what decisions need to be made.
October tasks: full review of trial balance to find unusual items, review of fixed asset register to flag disposals or impairments, preliminary accruals estimate, check on tax payment status, confirmation of any equity transactions from the year.
This early start lets you schedule meaningful conversations with your CPA, your controller, and your CFO about any issues. Finding a question in October gives you months to resolve it. Finding it in late December means scrambling through the holidays.
The November deep clean
November is where the actual cleanup work happens. Reconcile every account through October. Review every expense category for miscategorizations. Clean up any orphan transactions. Resolve any suspense account balances. The goal is to enter December with books that only need December activity added.
Also in November: preliminary year-end forecasts. Where will revenue land? What is the expected full-year profit or loss? What accruals will be needed? Having estimates in November lets you plan December decisions (bonus payments, equipment purchases) with clear visibility.
Talk to your CPA in November. Not for tax prep, that comes later, but for planning. What tax-relevant decisions can still be made? What documentation will they need? What form of deliverables do they want? A 30-minute conversation in November saves hours of back-and-forth in March.
December close activities
December bookkeeping should be routine if October and November were handled. Post December transactions normally. Record final accruals (bonuses, employer retirement contributions, insurance if applicable). Record final depreciation for the year. Confirm all December bank reconciliations.
Year-end journal entries happen in early January after all December activity is posted. Final accruals adjust. Prepaid expenses get set up. Deferred revenue schedules update. Fixed asset disposals get recorded. These entries close out the year cleanly.
Physical inventory count (if applicable) should happen as close to December 31 as possible. Same-day is ideal. If the count is off by more than a few days, you need to adjust for intervening purchases and sales, which adds complexity. Plan the timing carefully.
January handoff to tax
January is about packaging year-end for tax preparation. Documents needed: final trial balance, final P&L, final balance sheet, bank statements for December, credit card statements for December, payroll summaries, 1099 information, fixed asset additions with invoices, any equity transactions.
Send the package to your CPA by January 31 for efficient tax prep. Earlier is better, February 1 to March 15 is peak season and your return gets queued. Before January 31, you have a better shot at getting the return completed before the filing deadline.
File an extension if needed, but do it proactively, not reactively. Extensions filed in mid-March as a crisis response are awkward. Extensions filed in early March as part of planned timing are routine. Your CPA can advise on the expected timeline based on their workload and your complexity.