Year End Planning Checklist

Year End Planning Checklist

December 27, 2022

Joyce owns a small bookstore chain in the city. She is an entrepreneur and self-starter who has been working very hard for a long time. Her business is doing great, but the holiday rush is beginning to take its toll. Joyce needs to review all of her income, expenses, and payroll for this year and also needs to plan for a new location to open in 2023. She came to Yogi CPA for help in December and Yogi CPA began walking Joyce through her journey…

Relax, take a deep breath, get organized

First, Joyce needs to relax, take a deep breath, and get in the right headspace. Yogi CPA asks Joyce about her business and personal goals.

In order to accomplish these goals, Joyce needs to establish a good financial foundation for her business.
 

1. Gather invoices and receipts
Joyce has a lot of work to do in a short amount of time, and she doesn't have time to spend making spreadsheets or filing receipts. Joyce is used to the bookkeeping process, thanks to her experience of many years in business. However, her experience with previous bookkeeping is always manual, time consuming, and unsynchronized between invoice, expense, and receipt management. 

With the help of Yogi CPA, Joyce signed up for a bookkeeping software and began the automation flow of her accounting documents.

Business owners can gather and manage your invoices and expense receipts by two primary ways: first, store documents physically in paper files or on computer folders, or second, store documents electronically using online accounting software such as Quickbooks Online and Xero. Both approaches have their pros and cons. 

As a forward-thinking advisor, Yogi CPA recommends Joyce to store electronically and set up her digital inbox for the future. 

Joyce is relieved that all receipts and invoices have been stored and labeled very clearly. More importantly, the organization process reduces her financial stress. Now, Joyce has the time to think more about growing her business.

2. Separate personal and business expenses
As a hustler and resourceful individual, Joyce has often mixed up personal and business funds in the past. With the business growth plan, Joyce knows it is best to stay compliant and separate these funds and poses these questions to Yogi CPA for advice.

After a detailed conversation, Joyce now realizes keeping personal and business cash flow separate from each other has many benefits, including the ability to easily track her business's cash flow and manage your accounting more efficiently. It also prevents her from getting in legal liability for any mistakes made on either account.

Your business and your personal life are two different worlds, and keeping them that way is the best thing you can do for both. - Yogi CPA

As Yogi CPA explained, the best way to keep your personal and business accounts separate is by keeping them in two different bank accounts. It might seem like a lot of work, but separating accounts is actually very simple once you get into the habit of doing it.

3. Book transactions and reconcile accounts
With the bookkeeping software, it was so fast for Joyce to get through her transactions. Joyce has an excellent memory of where she spends her dollars on and just needs to tell the software as such.

Yogi CPA establishes an understanding of Joyce’s business, and creates a chart of accounts that optimizes Joyce’s business tax deductions. 

After finishing the transactions, Joyce is ready for account reconciliations. There are two ways of reconciling accounts: manually and automatically. If business owners choose to reconcile your accounts manually, they will have to go through each transaction and make sure that the bank details match up with the information in your bookkeeping software. This can be a time-consuming process, but it's also important to check for any discrepancies or errors before they become a part of the company's financial records. The second option is using a reconciliation program. This type of software will automatically compare the transactions in your bank statements with those in your bookkeeping software, which means that you can quickly see if there are any discrepancies between them.

Who would have thought that managing business finances could be so fun and easy. Get those 2022 tax deductions in! - Yogi CPA

4. Collect payroll information, prepare 1099 and W-2

As a small business owner, Joyce has both employees and contractors. The diversity of her team members brought her business significant benefits: she can optimize the resources more efficiently with lower costs. However, it also comes with more effort in payroll management, payroll and tax forms. Business owners like Joyce need to understand clearly the role of Form 1099 for contractors and Form W-2 for employees, and proactively plan for any new updates such as W-9, SSN/EIN, address change for personal and business, especially before January 31 of next year.

The key reason that Joyce needs to collect payroll information, prepare 1099s, and issue W-2s by January 31 is so her employees and contractors can file their taxes by April 15. The IRS requires businesses to have all of this information on hand and issue the proper forms to stay compliant.

With a passion to help Joyce get organized, Yogi CPA creates a system for Joyce to update her contractor and employee information, payment amount, and by January 31, process W-2 and 1099. 

Joyce’s employees and contractors are happy to receive the forms timely to file their own tax returns!

5. Have a professional review your interim financial statements and plan for next year
Joyce is an amazing CEO who puts others first, and has worked endless days and nights to take care of her business. However, the workload is usually overwhelming, especially when it comes to the year end period. After all, there are many stakeholders to manage and she’s even expanding to a new location in 2023. That’s why she asked for a professional like Yogi CPA to help!

Joyce’s business finances are now organized, invoices and receipts are matched, accounts reconciled… Most importantly, Joyce now has confidence that she can continue her journey to grow her company.

Running a business may require far more skills and labor than anyone can handle themselves, and acknowledging that is the first step to becoming a better CEO! As a business owner, December is a time of reflection and planning for the next year. You can use this time to check in on how you performed this past year, see where you need to improve, and set goals for the coming year that will help you grow your business.

Book a consultation with Yogi CPA so we can take care of your financial needs, just like Joyce! We are glad to be trusted as an award-winning firm with over 7 years of Big Four and CPA experience in auditing, tax, and consulting. 

Our next blog for entrepreneurs/business owners, will be on setting financial goals with some tactical plans. Send an email to hello@yogicpa.com to subscribe to our newsletter!

Keep calm, we’ve got your finances under control.

Zunie Nguyen, Founder & CEO

*Please note, the names and business information have been masked to protect confidentiality of the clients.

*Disclaimer: The information provided on this blog does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal, accounting, or tax advice; instead, all information, content, and materials available on this site are for general informational purposes only.