This year (2016). our Fiscal Calendar has December 25th as the last day of the year. We are usually on a tight schedule to meet audit and tax deadlines anyway, but with it falling so early this yea, company holidays are making our deadlines even tighter. Because we normally do inventories at all our locations, we have had to schedule them a little later than normal and rollback our numbers. Is anyone else being (or have been in the past) significantly affected by tightened deadlines and having to jump through major hoops to get things done? Any great ideas or magic solutions? Have a great holidays!
Handling Year End
Answers
1. Pre-audits (external) ....somewhere middle or 3/4 part of the year.
Pre-close ... depending on #2, you should have done everything or nearly everything to the accounts.
2. This is the most important part that people do not know or refuses to accept... What you do (extent of what you do) at year end depends largely on the totality (I should say, confidence in) of your systems and processes. Difficulty or ease of year end close is only a reflection (result).
My personal goal is to have an account ready to close ....ANYTIME of the year. That includes accuracy and completeness of transactions.
3. Treat month end close as important as your year-end close. Depending on your size and complexity, for SMBs, it should not take you a day or two difference between month-end close and year end close. From my experience, the main difference is largely on financial/tax planning, review and approvals....and not the "financials" themselves.
At my current client, each subsidiary is tick and tocked, with spreadsheets outlining whether in each major BS account is in Balance w/TB or not plus outstanding items.
December (YE Close) is not really different. However, a) we try to clean everything up (no loose ends), and prep all the paperwork for the Auditors to reduce the audit cost.
Those as Emerson said who wait till the end make what should be a no brainer into a maelstrom of unnecessary activity, aggravation and stress.