Small Biz Survival

The small town and rural business resource

A row of small town shops

Top 3 Year-end Accounting Tasks

By

Before you let the new year carry you away, take care of three important year-end accounting tasks.

1. Run your year-end reports on paper.

There are four important types of reports to document your important business info for the year. Put them on paper to protect against changes in software systems, lost data, or other vagaries of modern technology. Store them off site.
Run them for January 1 through December 31. Some are really long, so you may want to run them month by month to break it up.
I’ll also list the report names in QuickBooks, although I’m sure any software has its own equivalent.

  • Your basic financial position: Profit and Loss, and Balance Sheet
  • Totals for tax filings: Income Tax Summary
  • Detail of every transaction: Transaction Detail by Account
  • Important payroll tax totals: Employee Earnings Summary

The payroll tax totals protect you in case an employee ever questions withholding, perhaps even years after the fact.

2. Submit your required tax forms

In the USA, you’ll have three basic forms to tend to before January 31:

  • W2: one form for each employee, and one form W3 as a summary of all employees
  • 940: year end payroll report
  • 1099-Misc: one form for each independent contractor you paid over $600, and one form 1096 as a summary of all 1099’s.

Each of these applies only if you have paid employees or independent contractors.

Be sure to check with a tax professional, like our own Maesz, for more specifics on tax filings.

3. Do an annual backup

And store it off-site. Consider taking advantage of one of the many great online backup services. A good list is at Storage for Nothing, Backup for Free. Carbonite is too new for the list, but gets good reviews. If you prefer to keep your backups off the internet, Comodo offers free backup software.

New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Get our updates. Want more stories? Read our shared stories from all over.

About Becky McCray

Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.

Wondering what is and is not allowed in the comments?
Or how to get a nifty photo beside your name?
Check our commenting policy.
Use your real name, not a business name.


Don't see the comment form?
Comments are automatically closed on older posts, but you can send me your comment via this contact form and I'll add it manually for you. Thanks!

Howdy!

Glad you dropped in to the rural and small town business blog, established in 2006.

We want you to feel at home, so please take our guided tour.

Meet our authors on the About page.

Have something to say? You can give us a holler on the contact form.

If you would like permission to re-use an article you've read here, please make a Reprint Request.

Want to search our past articles? Catch up with the latest stories? Browse through the categories? All the good stuff is on the Front Page.

Shop Local

Buy local buttonReady to set up a shop local campaign in your small town? You'll need a guide who understands how we're different and what really works: Shop Local Campaigns for Small Towns.

Best of Small Biz Survival

More of the best of Small Biz Survival