Year-end guide for QuickBooks Online

Review your books, run reports, and prepare your sales tax returns in QuickBooks Online at year-end. This helps you balance your accounts and prepare your business for the next year.

Here is how to:

• Check the first month of your fiscal year
• Run year-end reports
• Clear outstanding deposits
• Check customer account balances
• Check supplier account balances
• Reconcile accounts
• Distribute profits
• Prepare your sales tax returns with your ProAdvisor
• Reclassify transactions
• Close your books

Check the first month of your fiscal year

1. Go to Settings and select Account and settings.
2. Select Advanced.
3. From the Accounting section, select Edit.
4. Select the First month of fiscal year ▼ dropdown, then select the month where you start your fiscal year.
5. Select Save, then select Done.

Review reports, deposits, and account balances

Run year-end reports

1. Follow this link to complete the steps in product
2. Select + Management report, then enter a name in Management report name. 
3. Select or fill out the remaining info as needed.
4. Select Reports and charts. 
5. Enter Balance Sheet in the Report ▼ dropdown, then select the balance sheet report you need to run.
6. Select a date range from the Report period ▼ dropdown.
   Note: If the dropdown is not visible, select the edit icon .
7. From the Add ▼ dropdown, select Report. 
8. Enter Profit and Loss in the Report ▼ dropdown, then select the profit and loss report you need to run.
9. Select a date range from the Report period ▼ dropdown.
   Note: If the dropdown is not visible, select the edit icon .
10. Select Save and Close.

Note: Your net income may not match what you see in your reports.

You can check and run other reports you need. You can also create a management report to see how much you’ve made.

Clear outstanding deposits

• Clear all outstanding bank deposits from your deposit queue.
• Check your undeposited funds account for payments that may still be there.
• Create bank deposits for any payments from your undeposited funds account. 

Note: QuickBooks includes undeposited funds in the income. You still need to move the funds to the bank account history that receives the payments or deposits.

Check customer account balances

Note: You can find these reports in QuickBooks Online Advanced, QuickBooks Online Plus, and QuickBooks Online Essentials.

1. Follow this link to complete the steps in product
2. Select the Type report name here ▼ dropdown.
3. Search for and select the Accounts receivable aging summary or Accounts receivable aging detail report.
4. Review the report. Then, identify customers with outstanding balances.
   Note: If you find outstanding balances, create and send a statement to the customer.

Check supplier account balances

Note: You can find these reports in QuickBooks Online Advanced, QuickBooks Online Plus, and QuickBooks Online Essentials.

1. Follow this link to complete the steps in product
2. Select the Type report name here ▼ dropdown.
3. Search for and select the Accounts payable aging summary or Accounts payable aging detail report.
4. Review the report, then check for any outstanding bills.
   Note: You can make bill payments to settle any outstanding bills to your suppliers.

Reconcile accounts

Prepare to reconcile your accounts for the year end. Get help to understand the reconciliation workflow.

Important: Reconcile all your accounts monthly. This keeps your data balanced and accurate at year-end.

Distribute profits

Your ProAdvisor can help you distribute retained earnings among partners.

Prepare sales tax returns with your ProAdvisor

Your ProAdvisor can help you with your year-end process. You can invite or add your ProAdvisor to QuickBooks Online, if you haven’t yet. This lets them prepare and file sales tax on your behalf.

Reclassify transactions

You can also let your ProAdvisor review your accounts and reclassify transactions. They can help you manage your transactions and organize your books.

Close your books

When you finish the year-end review of your financial data, you can close your books. This prevents unwanted changes that could affect your reports before you file your sales tax.