What the Accountant Needs from You at Year End

Whew! You made it to the end of the year. You have accounted for all of the financial transactions in which your company has been engaged, you've reconciled the bank account and prepared or printed off a trial balance, and you're ready for the accountant to perform magic. What now?

There are several things that have to happen between the time you reconcile your last bank statement and the time your accountant hands you back the final financial statements. We'll look at both what you will need to do to "close off" your year and what your accountant does with the information you provide.

Every accountant will prefer to do things in a slightly different way at year end, but here are the general things you should have ready:

• Trial balance: This document is the one your accountant will use to prepare the financial statements.

• General journal detail: Your accountant may need to see how you have prepared some of your transactions.

• Bank reconciliation: Your accountant will want to make sure you did it correctly.

• Bank statements: Have at least the year-end statement available so your accountant can compare it to your bank reconciliation.

• Check stubs: To make sure that you have recorded all of the outstanding checks, your accountant will need to see the check stubs.

• Accounts receivable and payable listings: The accountant will want to see an aged listing of your receivables and payables.

• Government remittance forms and statements of account: The accountant may want to reconcile your books to what the government trunks you owe.

• Corporate notice of assessment from last year: The accountant will check that the tax returns your company filed were assessed by the government and not changed.

If your accountant is reviewing or auditing your financial statements rather than just preparing them, he or she may want many more documents and, at year end, will provide you with a list of these.