Proper planning and organisation can make the transition into the new financial year seamless and set you up for success to meet your 2025/6 goals. Here’s a dual-category checklist to help streamline your year-end processes: one focuses on assisting your accountant with year-end processing, and the other helps you enhance your internal operations.
Accountant Checklist
The accountant’s role is pivotal in ensuring your financial records are accurate and compliant. Here are essential tasks they should handle:
Inventory/stock values to accurately calculate profit and loss
Inventory is a key component of your balance sheet and directly affects your profit and loss statements and ultimately your tax calculations. So your accountant needs to have accurate inventory values for your tax return. When you compare physical count to accounting records, investigate and resolve any discrepancies making adjustments clear.
Write off bad debts
Identify and write off any debts that are unlikely to be collected to clean up your balance sheet. Writing bad debt off ensures your profit is based on money you actually expect to receive. Deducting bad debts will reduce the amount of tax you owe and provides a clearer picture of cash flow. For your accountant to write off bad debt you need to show you have made reasonable efforts to collect it.
Review the coding of your ledger
Review and check that all financial transactions are accurately categorized and coded to facilitate correct financial reporting. Check for consistency in your coding, and where you have monthly payments all 12 monthly payments are recorded.
Verify your balance sheet
Please ensure you provide your accountant with information on loans, hire purchase agreements, and bank accounts so that they can confirm balances. This will ensure liabilities and assets are recorded correctly. Ensuring compliance and that agreements align with interest charges and repayments.
Review the overall financial health of your business
ExpertEase can help you look at ALL your financial statements and identify any patterns and trends looking for potential growth areas or spot areas that need attention—this will help highlight areas of opportunities for growth and/or areas for improvement in 2025/6.
Review tax obligations
Ensure all tax payments (GST, income tax, payroll taxes) have been made and explore any missed deductions or credits.
Prepare for tax filing
Organise all necessary documents required for tax filing, please see our check list.
General Operations Checklist
While your accountant focuses on financial accuracy, you can enhance your business operations with these key steps:
Conducting a Stock take/ inventory check
An accurate stock/inventory take will help you with your business decisions going forward, particularly with regards to stock processes and purchasing strategies. It will provide insights into slow moving or obsolete stock allowing you to identify areas of over stocking, or under stocking leading to improved cash flow management.
Also, it can identify areas of theft, shrinkage or mismanagement of stock enabling you to implement processes to minimise future wastage.
Generally, it’s a good idea to conduct the stock take outside business hours to minimize disruptions. Use a systematic approach and technology. Compare physical count to accounting records and resolve any discrepancies. Identify damage or obsolete items for clearance or potential write offs.
Managing Bad debt
Generate an ‘aged’ debtors report to see which invoices are due. Focus on debtsover90-120 days overdue. Consider each customer and determine likelihood of payment being received. Do they normally pay late? are they still trading etc. Follow up with a letter or phone call one last time.
For debt to be written off in New Zealand you must show that you have made reasonable efforts to collect t it, so keep records of invoices and correspondence.
Consider amending your invoicing processes, to avoid future risk. Maybe tighten up credit terms, implement an upfront deposit requirement, and consider using a collection agency.
Reconcile bank accounts
Correct and regularly coding makes it easier to match your bank statements with your accounting records. Coding transactions provides valuable insights into spending patterns, revenue sources and overall financial health particularly with precision in cash flow reporting.
Review vendors and suppliers
Assess current vendor relationships for cost-effectiveness and service quality and confirm any outstanding balances. Negotiate new agreements or terms where necessary.
Evaluate profit and loss statement
Assess your business performance over the year and adjust strategies as needed to improve financial health. See where your money is being spent. Compare spending to previous years for any large changes. Advertising and sponsorship can easily get away from you, so make sure you are spending wisely in these areas. Ensure changes from suppliers are as per agreements.
Update employee records
Make sure all payroll, leave entitlements, and superannuation contributions are accurate and up-to-date.
Review reasons for staff leaving and compare this to the cost of finding, inducting and training new staff. Take time to assess training and development needs, and budget for these in the coming year ensuring your staff are equipped with the skills to meet their role.
Also evaluate the current team structure and how this supports your business goals. Make sure roles are clearly defined and you are fully utilising each team members strengths. Ensuring the right people are in the right roles can drive efficiency, improve morale and lead to greater success.
Assess operational processes
Conduct a review of your day-to-day processes to identify inefficiencies and opportunities for enhancing productivity and cost savings.
Ask staff what causes them the most problems, or what the most time-consuming activities are. It might be time to streamline workflows or adopt new technologies to boost productivity. At ExpertEase we offer free half hour training sessions on Xero for our clients which can save much time on your book keeping and invoicing.
Review customer feedback both positive and complaints This can guide product or service enhancements for 2025. If you haven’t already set up a feedback log to capture this information throughout the year.
Review risk management and health and safety policies
Revisit your risk management strategies and ensure health and safety policies are up to date and aligned with current regulations. This not only protects your business but also ensures a safe working environment for your team. A strong focus on well-being and risk mitigation can help reduce downtime, prevent costly disruptions and safeguard you against unforeseen events.
Plan for the Future
This comprehensive checklist provides assistance to your accountant and your internal processes ensuring both financial accuracy and operational efficiency. By effectively managing these aspects it will not only help you comply with statutory requirements but also enhance your business’s strategic positioning.
Use insights from this review and your financial statements to set strategic and financial goals, with budgets for the upcoming financial year. ExpertEase can help with budgets and cashflow projections, factoring in your goals, economic trends, expansion opportunities, and potential risks. This can help you stay financially resilient and pave the way for a successful future.
If you would like further help on reviewing and filing your end of year reports, please contact Natasha at ExpertEase.
