Year-End Checklist: Getting Your Books Ready for Your Accountant

Year-end is much less stressful when your bookkeeping is ready before your accountant asks for it. Accurate records mean fewer queries, less back-and-forth and more time spent on advice rather than fixing errors. Use this checklist to get organised. Your accountant may ask for different or additional items, so check with them first.

Bank and cash

• Reconcile every bank, credit card, savings and payment platform account to its statement up to your year-end date. See our reconciliation guide.
• Clear or explain any unreconciled and suspense items.
• Keep a copy of the statements showing the year-end balances.

Sales and customers

• Check that all invoices issued in the year are recorded.
• Produce a list of unpaid customer invoices at year-end and check it for anything that looks uncollectable.
• Check for customer payments that are not matched to an invoice.

Purchases and suppliers

• Make sure all supplier bills and expense receipts for the year are entered.
• Produce a list of unpaid supplier bills at year-end.
• Note any bills relating to the year that arrive after year-end.

Assets, loans and other balances

• List equipment, vehicles or other assets bought or sold during the year, with invoices.
• Have loan statements ready showing the balance at year-end and interest charged.
• If you own the business personally, check how money taken out of the business has been recorded.
• List any stock held at year-end, if relevant to your business.

Documents and questions

• Gather contracts, agreements and correspondence your accountant may need.
• Have last year's finalised accounts to hand so opening balances can be agreed.
• Write down anything unusual that happened in the year, such as new premises, a big purchase or a change in how you trade.

If the books are not ready

If you start the checklist and find gaps, the sooner you address them the better. Our Accounting Books Clean-Up reviews your existing accounts and puts them right, so they are ready for your accountant. To avoid a year-end scramble in future, ongoing bookkeeping support keeps your records up to date every month. For a reminder of who does what, see bookkeeping vs accounting.

When to start

Start before your year-end date, not after it. A short review in the final month lets you chase missing paperwork while suppliers and customers can still find it, confirm which invoices will genuinely be paid, and check stock or assets while the position is current. Work through the list again in the weeks after year-end, once all the late invoices have arrived.

Leaving everything until your accountant asks, often months later, means reconstructing details nobody remembers, which is slower and more expensive.

What your accountant usually asks for

Requirements vary with your business and structure, but most year-end requests include:

• Access to your accounting software, or a backup or trial balance.
• Bank, credit card and loan statements covering the year-end date.
• Lists of unpaid customer invoices and unpaid supplier bills at year-end.
• Invoices for assets bought or sold.
• Last year's finalised accounts, if they are not already held.
• An explanation of anything unusual during the year.

Answer queries in one batch

Accountants typically come back with a list of questions. Answering them in one go, with the supporting document attached to each answer, is far quicker than a scattered exchange of emails over several weeks. Keep a running note through the year of anything you know will need explaining, such as a one-off payment or an unusual transfer, and the query list becomes much shorter.

Use year-end as a review

Once the accounts are done, the figures are worth more than a filing obligation. Compare this year with last: is your gross margin holding up, have overheads crept, are customers paying more slowly than they used to? It is also the natural moment to ask whether your bookkeeping routine worked. If the answer was a scramble, the fix is usually a regular monthly process rather than a bigger effort next year.

This article is general information for small businesses in Ireland. It is not tax, legal or financial advice, and rules, thresholds and deadlines change. Please check current guidance on revenue.ie or speak to your accountant about your own situation.