The 5-Step Year-End Planning Checklist for Businesses
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Year-end planning is more than just closing your books. It’s your opportunity to learn from the previous year and set your business on the right track to achieve your goals for the upcoming year. Here is a checklist of things you should start now and complete before the end of this year to close this year out right and help your business plan for the upcoming year.
Business Year-End Checklist
Step 1: Review Your Financial Reports
Your year-end financial reports give you a big-picture view of how your business functioned financially over the past year. You’ll want to look at things like your company’s balance sheet, profit and loss statements, and detailed cash flow reports.
In addition to your statements, you’ll also want to reconcile all your accounts to ensure everything is balanced and nothing is outstanding.
Step 2: Reflect on Your Goals from This Year
Once you have a big-picture understanding of your business’s performance from the previous year, you’ll want to compare that information to the goals you set at the beginning of the year.
Did you meet your goals? What can you learn from your successes? More importantly, what can you learn from your shortcomings? This information will help you identify your strengths and weaknesses, which will be helpful in the next step.
Get Feedback from Your Team
Your business is built not just on your leadership but the work of your team. Asking your team for feedback is a critical step to understanding the drivers for your business’s successes and shortcomings. This is also a great way to address any concerns and make changes accordingly for the upcoming year.
Step 3: Set Goals for the Upcoming Year
Once you’ve taken the time to evaluate this past year, it’s time to outline goals for the upcoming year. You’ll want to use the information you’ve learned by reflecting on this past year to create realistic goals for what you want to achieve in the new year.
As with any plan, for each goal, make sure to outline how you’ll measure success.
Step 4: Work on Your Tax Planning Strategy
We all have to pay taxes. However, that doesn’t mean we have to be caught off guard by them, and it doesn’t mean they cannot be optimized. With a constantly changing tax code, it is vital to review your tax planning strategy regularly so that you and your business can take advantage of any new tax advantages and plan for any expiring ones.
Step 5: Create a New Budget for the Upcoming Year
The last step in your business’s year-end planning should be creating a budget for the upcoming year. By doing this last, you’ll be able to use the information from previous steps, like your current budget and financial reports and your new goals, to make informed decisions about your new budget. This is why it’s important to create your new budget after you’ve completed all other steps.
Getting Started
With careful year-end reflection and planning, your business can finish the current year strong and get ready to start the new one on the right track.
Have questions about getting started? We’re ready to help. Contact us to meet with our team of business advisory and business tax planning experts.