Year-end guide for QuickBooks Online

Learn how to close your previous fiscal year and prepare for the new one in QuickBooks Online.

Review your books, run reports, and prepare your tax returns with your accountant. This helps you balance financial transactions and get your business ready for the coming year.

• Review the first month of your fiscal year
• Review customer account balances and send statements
• Clear any outstanding deposits
• Review supplier account balances, pay bills, or write cheques
• Reconcile all bank, credit card, and petty cash accounts
• Run year-end reports
• Distribute profits from the business
• Prepare your tax returns with your accountant
• Reclassify transactions
• Close your books

Review the first month of your fiscal year

Check when your accounting period starts.

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

Check customer account balances

Make sure your customer’s info is up to date.

1. Go to Reports (Take me there).
2. In the Find report by name ▼ dropdown, select Accounts receivable aging summary or Accounts receivable aging detail.
   Note: These reports are only available in QuickBooks Online Advanced, Plus, and Essentials.
3. Review the report. Then, identify customers with outstanding balances.
   Note: If you find outstanding balances, create and send a statement to the customer.

Clear outstanding deposits

Clear any outstanding bank deposits from your deposit queue. Record and create bank deposits if there are still payments in the undeposited funds account. This helps you record all your payments in the correct bank register. 

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

Check supplier account balances

Review your supplier account balances and check if you have any outstanding bills.

1. Go to Reports (Take me there).
2. In the Find report by name ▼ dropdown, select Accounts payable aging summary or Accounts payable aging detail.
   Note: These reports are only available in QuickBooks Online Advanced, Plus, and Essentials.
3. Review the report, then identify the outstanding bills.
   Note: You can pay with a cheque or bill payments to settle any outstanding bills to your suppliers.

Reconcile all accounts

Reconcile all your accounts monthly. This helps you get balanced and accurate data by year end.

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

Run year-end reports

Run reports to identify issues and check for discrepancies. Here's how.

1. Go to Reports (Take me there), then select Management reports.
2. Select Create management report, then enter a name in the Management report name field. 
3. Fill out info as needed.
4. Select Reports and charts. 
5. Enter Balance Sheet in the Report ▼ dropdown. Then, select a period from the Report period field.
   Note: If the Report period field is not visible, select the pencil icon .
6. In the Add ▼ dropdown, select Report. 
7. Enter Profit and Loss in the Report ▼ dropdown. Then, select a period in the Report period field.
     Note: If the Report period field is not visible, select the pencil icon .
8. Select Save and Close.

Note: If your current net income doesn’t match what’s in your reports, here are the possible reasons and recommended solutions.

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

Distribute profits

If needed, your accountant can help you distribute retained earnings among partners.

Prepare your tax returns with your accountant

Your accountant can help you with your year-end process. If you haven’t invited yet, you can add your accountant to QuickBooks Online. This lets them prepare and file taxes on your behalf.

Reclassify transactions

If needed, your accountant can review your accounts and reclassify transactions. They can also manage your transactions to help you organize your books.

Close your books

After you review all of your financial data, you can close your books for the year-end. This prevents unwanted changes that may affect your reports before filing your taxes.