Year-end guide for QuickBooks Desktop

Select the month to start your fiscal year so QuickBooks can set your ledgers (behind the scene). You can still work on other year-end activities.

To review or change the first month of your fiscal year:

1. Go to Company, and then select My Company.
2. Select the pencil icon.
3. Go to Report Information. Check if the first month of your fiscal year is the right one to make sure your financial reports use the right dates.

As the year ends, make sure your client base has up-to-date balances, billings, and payments.

To settle outstanding customer payments, run an Accounts Receivable Aging Summary or Detail report:

1. From Reports, select Customers & Receivables.
2. Select A/R Aging Summary or A/R Aging Detail.
3. Review the report to find any customers with outstanding balances.

Once you find outstanding balances, you can send statements to your customers.

To send a statement:

1. Go to Customers, and then select Create Statements.
2. Select your A/R account.
   Note: QuickBooks displays the A/R Account field only when your chart of accounts has more than one A/R.
3. Check the statement date.
4. Select the date period of the transactions.
   Note: You can specify the dates or you can include all open (unpaid) transactions as of the statement date.
5. Select the customers you want to print statements for and choose any additional options.
6. Select Print or E-mail, depending on how you want to send the statements to your customers.

To make reconciliation easier, make sure you don’t have any outstanding deposits.

It's a good practice to match your QuickBooks data to your bank accounts. This makes sure all transactions are correct, and your year-end reports display the correct financial info.

Before you reconcile, make sure to:

• Back up your QuickBooks company file.
• Enter all uncleared transactions for the statement period.
• Have a copy of your bank or credit card statement.

Run year-end reports to review the info, identify and resolve any possible issues.

To run year-end reports:

1. Go to Reports, and then select Company & Financial.
2. Select Profit and Loss and the Balance Sheet Standard, or any customized reports you might need.

It's important to understand how QuickBooks adjusts automatically at year end, for the next fiscal year.

Your accountant can provide expert advice on data input, help with your year-end process, and forecast your company’s financial future.

Work with your accountant with the Accountant's Copy. You can save the accountant's file locally, and then share it electronically using the transfer service.

Taxes are usually done by a company's accountant.

Sharing the Accountant's Copy file to your accountant gives them access to all the financial info they need to prepare and file your company's taxes. They can also make any changes to it.

QuickBooks Desktop doesn't require you to close the books as part of the year-end process. You can set a closing date password to limit access to the closed accounting period.