Year-End Close-Out

Hi there, Bert2021. 

QuickBooks will automatically adjust your Income and Expense accounts at the end of the year to zero them out and you start your new fiscal year with zero net income. This happens when you close your books in QuicBooks Online. It essentially increases your Retained Earnings equity account by the previous year's net income and decreases your net income by the same amount. This way, you start each new fiscal year with a net income of zero.

Here's how:

1. Go to the Gear icon ⚙ and select Accounts and Settings.
2. Proceed to the Advanced tab.
3. Click Edit ✎ in the Accounting section.
4. Look for Close the books and slide the status bar to the right.
5. Enter a closing date. 
6. Select the Allow changes after viewing a warning and entering a password option from the drop-down menu if you want to require a password before editing your closed books.
7. Click Save.

Let me share these articles with you for more details and reference:

• QuickBooks Online Year-end Guide And Checklist
• Close Your Books In QuickBooks Online

Please don't hesitate to reach out to us again or reply below if you have follow-up questions. 

Hi Bert2021,

Hope you’re doing great. I wanted to see how everything is going about closing your books in QBO. Was it resolved? Do you need any additional help or clarification? If you do, just let me know. I’d be happy to help you at anytime.Looking forward to your reply.

Have a pleasant day ahead!

I can't find the "gear icon"--where is it?

How do I locate the "gear icon"? I can't find it.

I've got your back, @xeni1548.

The Gear icon is used to access many features in your QuickBooks Online (QBO) account. I'd be glad to direct you to where you can find it. 

You can locate the Gear icon within the QBO program. After logging in to your QBO account, you can see the Gear icon at the upper-right corner beside the initial letter of your name.

See this screenshot below for your reference:

Additionally, feel free to save these resources that will help you with personalizing your QBO account to whatever you need to change:

• Edit company settings in QuickBooks Online
• Navigate QuickBooks Online: Menus, Transactions & Set Up

Let me know if you still need help finding the gear icon, and I'll do my best to assist you further. Have a great day ahead!

This was very helpful. After you take these steps and change the setting to your year end closing date and save. What do you do? Do you run your P&L and Balance sheet for year end records?

This was incredibly helpful and I was able to change the settings to close out year end. But what do I do after that? Do I run a final P&L and Balance sheet, etc. Not sure what my next steps are for everything to show up in my QB Online account. Any help is much appreciated.

I hope you're doing well, @ChristyV. I'll be more than happy to guide you and share some insights on your tasks after changing the closing books period of your company in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

Since you've modified the period for closing your books, you now have the time to scan through the data inside your company file. You can review transactions with your customers and check your business accounts to ensure they contain accurate data. You can also make changes within your files inside your company if you have items that you want to correct.

I'd also recommend running the profit and loss report to check if the figures are accurate. I'll gladly input the steps below so you can proceed. To begin, here's how:

1. Access your QuickBooks Online company.
2. On the left navigational bar, go to the Reports tab.
3. In the Search bar, type Profit and Loss and then select the report in the search result.
4. Use the filter option if you want to view data from a specific period.

If you want to a more enhanced and data wise version of the report, you have the option to customize it. You can refer to this article for more information: Customize reports in QuickBooks Online.

Additionally, you can visit this page to for further guidelines about the year-end processes in QBO: Year-end guide for QuickBooks Online.

You can also visit this article to learn more about closing books: Close your books in QuickBooks Online.

It's always a pleasure to have you here, @ChristyV. I'll be thrilled to assist you again if you have any additional QuickBooks-related concerns. Don't hesitate to post them here in the Community space. Take care, and more power to your business!

Hi there, @ChristyV.

It looks like you've already posted this in the same thread, and I've already provided a recommendation to guide you with what tasks to accomplish after changing the schedule for closing your books in QuickBooks Online (QBO). I'll be happy to route you to my response so you can proceed.

See the link below to view my recommendation:
https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/reports-and-accounting/re-year-end-close-out/01/12...

Once again, thanks for dropping by here in the Community, @ChristyV. Hope to have you here again. Take care!

Just in case you need to for some unforeseen reason, how do you reverse this closing process?

I appreciate you for joining here in the thread, Nanyar98.

I can help you reverse the closing process of your books.

QuickBooks Online allows users to close their books to prevent unwanted changes. Indeed, there are instances that we need to reopen the book for some reason. Fortunately, it is possible by turning off the feature, which you can perform as the company admin.

Here's how:

1. Sign in to QuickBooks Online as a primary admin or company admin.
2. Go to the Gear icon, then select Account and Settings.
3. Proceed to the Advanced tab.
4. In the Accounting section, click the Pencil icon to edit.
5. Toggle off the Close the books feature.
6. Hit Save, then Done.

Please refer to this article for further details about the process: Edit your closed books in QuickBooks Online.

In addition, you can visit this page to review what makes up your Retained Earnings: View Retained Earnings account details in QuickBooks Online.

Let us know here in the thread if you have follow-up questions about reversing the closing method of your books in QuickBooks Online. We're always here to help.