Year end costs what it costs largely because of decisions made in June. A file that arrives reconciled and documented gets processed. A file that arrives with questions attached gets worked through by somebody billing for the time it takes to answer them, months after the context has gone.
None of what follows is difficult. It is just far cheaper to do as you go than to reconstruct in March.
Six things that decide how it goes
- Every bank, credit card and loan account reconciled to a statement, right through to the last day of the year. Imported is not the same as reconciled.
- A closing balance on every loan that matches what the lender says it is, with interest split out from principal.
- Inventory counted, if you carry any, with the count sheet kept somewhere findable.
- The shareholder account explained: whatever moved between you and the company personally, with a note on what each movement was for.
- Payroll agreeing to the T4 summary, and the source deduction account cleared to nil.
- Anything unusual flagged in advance. An asset bought or sold, a new lease, a government program, a change in what the business actually does.
The catch-all account is where the cost hides
Almost every file has one account holding the things nobody could place at the time. It is rarely large, and it is almost always the most expensive part of the year end, because every entry in it is a question somebody has to put to you months later.
Clearing it as you go takes minutes a month. Clearing it in March takes an afternoon of email, and some of the answers will genuinely be lost by then.
Why the timing matters more than the tidiness
A year end that starts in February with a complete file is a short job. The same file arriving in June, after a couple of extensions, is the same work done under time pressure, with less room to notice anything useful along the way.
The saving is not only in the fee. It is in getting the finished numbers while the new year is still young enough to do something about what they show. A set of figures that lands in July describes a year you can no longer influence.