Year End Wrap

In preparation for the year end I usually get together with my accountant to ensure things are on track. It gives us more time to make sure things have been done correctly before we reach the end of the year.

Here are some of the things to do:
- Print your profit/loss statement (P&L) , chart of accounts and Balance Sheet for this year and last. Make sure these are for the same periods. (i.e. Jan 1 - Nov. 15, 2009 & 2010).
- Compare each account and balance between years. Did your Sales go up or down? Did your Purchases go up or down as well? Are there any accounts that have shown large increases/decreases. Can you explain the changes?

Here are areas that I have founds errors
- Postage/Freight - in our case we had a huge decrease but we did more sales so logically this should have increased. Turns out we missed input invoices from Canada Post.
- Check the retained earnings account to ensure it lines up with last year end. If they don't coincide then something is wrong.
- Accounts receivable amounts should be reasonable. If not then start collecting.
- Merchandise inventory - check that this is not too high or too low. Have you done an inventory count recently? Maybe do this before the year end too.
- Foreign exchange - market changes could explain some variance but it has to be reasonable. If not you might have an accounting problem that you do not know about.

This is some of the fun stuff about owning your own business in Canada.