Close your books in QuickBooks Online

Closing your books prevents any accidental changes that could affect your financial reports.

This article will explain the following steps involved in closing your books:

1. Review your accounts
2. Close your books
3. Next Steps (reviewing your closed books, and what to expect afterwards)

Step 1: Review your accounts

1. Sign in to QuickBooks Online as a primary or company admin.
2. Review your accounts and make sure everything looks good.
3. Enter any outstanding invoices, expenses, and payments.
4. Reconcile your accounts up to your closing date.
5. Review your inventory quantities.

Step 2: Close your books

1. Go to Settings ⚙ and then select Accounts and settings.
2. Select the Advanced tab.
3. Select Edit ✎ in the Accounting section.
4. Turn on the Close the books switch.
5. Enter a closing date. Give yourself a comfortable deadline. You shouldn't need to edit any transactions before this date. Your new bookkeeping work will start after this point.
6. Select the Allow changes after viewing a warning and entering a password option from the dropdown menu if you want to require a password before editing your closed books.
7. Select Save and then Done.

Next steps

Review your closed books

Get ready for year-end and check out our year-end guide and checklist in QuickBooks Online. If you're an accountant or bookkeeper, follow this guide and checklist.

What changes after year-end close

When a new financial year begins, QuickBooks Online adds the total income from the previous year to your Balance Sheet. This is called Retained Earnings. Retained Earnings show all your company's income and expenses from all the years before. To learn more, you can find out how to view Retained Earnings account details.

Remember, the Retained Earnings account is not the same as the Retained Earnings calculation. You can find this as a line item on the Balance Sheet.