What Is Financial Close and Why Is It Important?

In companies with multiple subsidiaries, the financial close also includes consolidating the division’s financial statements, analysing for intercompany eliminations and other post-closing adjustments. For external financial statements, data for footnotes and other disclosures are also generated. These items include accumulation (known as “accrual” in accounting) of real estate taxes or depreciation accrual, which need to be recorded to close the books. By “closing the books,” a bookkeeper can seal financial records for a period of time and know that they’ll be accurate and orderly when reviewed again.

It’s easier to make adjustments to journal entries when you use accounting software with connections to expert bookkeepers and tax prep services. For small businesses to streamline accounting close processes and maximize efficiency, a systematic approach should be implemented. Crafting a checklist of all necessary tasks that need to be performed during the closing process can help ensure you don’t overlook any step. If you’re an owner or an accountant at a small firm looking to optimize your financial closing process, you can find a lot to learn from Gartner’s research on the characteristics of companies with a fast accounting close [1]. It’s estimated that organizations can trim two days off of their year-end close by adopting a standard chart of accounts and common financial data definitions.

What is book closing in accounting?

To get started, Sandeep Gill [2] has provided some helpful guidance with a general SMB close checklist that can be tailored to meet your unique business needs. It’s never too late to make a positive change, of course, and start working toward the results you want even if you may not https://www.bookstime.com/ see those results all at once. After you’ve identified the problems that are at the root of a slow or chaotic close, you’ll be much better equipped to start untangling the rest of the mess. When you are growing a business, there are bound to be times when you need to invest money…

• After you close the books on a month, set the closing date lock to be the last day of the month.
• It is no wonder that the basic elements of this accounting methodology have endured for hundreds of years.
• It’s impossible to reliably automate every single manual process, so be strategic – especially when regulatory compliance is on the line.
• Since income statement accounts record current year activity, they must be zeroed out or closed at the end of each accounting period.
• Only revenue, expense, and dividend accounts are closed – not asset, liability, Capital Stock, or Retained Earnings accounts.
• These reports can be generated automatically in your accounting software.

While the financial close process is by its nature challenging, many organisations face avoidable process troubles that unnecessarily contribute to the difficulty. Addressing the following five common financial close problems could drastically improve your financial closing cycle. Even if you ask your accountant to close your books for you, it’s important to understand the basic steps involved so you know what to expect. A less obvious, but truly unfortunate cost of a rushed, inaccurate or failed close is that it robs organizations of the opportunity to analyze good data to make more strategic decisions. Ideally, CFOs and Controllers would be able to drill down into this data to identify areas of improvement or opportunities for growth and make sound predictions for the future. Permanent accounts consist of those on the balance sheet, such as assets, liabilities, and equity.

Step 7: Close temporary accounts

Cash payments (“cash disbursements”) include any payments made by cash, check, or electronic fund transfer. The same is true of your cash receipts journal, though this journal tracks the inflow, not the outflow, of funds. Your accountant often does these steps or uses professional accounting software to reduce errors.

Think of book closing as a big puzzle, where all the money you earned and spent should be put in the right places. The process of closing the temporary accounts is often referred to as closing the books . Only revenue, expense, and dividend accounts are closed – not asset, liability, Capital Stock, or Retained Earnings accounts.

Some best practices of a fast accounting close

You want your total credits to be the same number as your total debits—if they aren’t, go back and check your work. If the credits and debits are equal, your accounts balance, and you’re ready to go to the next step. With over a decade of experience consulting with business owners about their tax issues, Logan has seen almost everything when it comes to tax negotiations with the IRS and state tax authorities. Prior to starting his own tax resolution practice, the closing process is sometimes referred to as closing the books. Logan was in a managerial capacity at a Big 4 professional services firm, handling tax issues for billion-dollar companies. In addition to running Choice Tax Relief, Logan also owns the personal finance blog Money Done Right, which educates thousands of readers a day about making, saving, and investing money. Logan also runs a YouTube channel on which he publishes weekly videos about what everyday Americans need to know about taxes and tax relief.

Accounting software may create an automatic closing date as well as a password so transactions from before the closing date can’t be changed. You can review your books on a monthly basis or go over them at quarterly or annual intervals. Many small businesses have unique processes for closing the books at different periods.

How to Prepare Closing Entries

You will need to accrue all those expenses as they belong to the previous period. These are a few forward-thinking adjustments that make your financial records more accurate and reliable. Fixed assets are any ‘permanent’ object of large value that a business uses internally such as office equipment or vehicles. Unless you are going to set up and post depreciation yourself, simply code the purchases to a Fixed Asset account and let your tax preparer set up depreciation schedules for your tax return at the end of the year. After each period close, evaluate how the process went and look for areas to improve the next time.

This process results in all revenues and expenses being “corralled” in Income Summary (the net of which represents the income or loss for the period). In turn, the income or loss is then swept to Retained Earnings along with the dividends. Recall that beginning retained earnings, plus income, less dividends, equals ending retained earnings; likewise, the closing process updates the beginning retained earnings to move forward to the end-of-period balance. Audit your entire process to understand the areas where manual processes are consuming the most time. With the right ERP package it should be easy to automate you process for period closings, including management of revenue earn-out schedules, amortization and depreciation.

Lock the Books as of the Closing Date

55 percent of participants in the Dimensional Research study said that struggling to close the books on time meant they had to work outside of regular business hours, including evenings and weekends. That this causes burnout is unsurprising, but it’s worrisome that 1 in 4 of participating organizations said that routine closing actually contributed to employee churn. Drill into any areas where actual results were significantly different from your budget and determine what caused the variance.

Follow up on any transactions in your accounting system which did not appear on your credit card statement. While the accounting process can differ slightly from one business or non-profit organization to the next, the monthly closing process should be relatively consistent. Use the 10 steps outlined below to help ensure consistent and accurate reporting, enabling you to financially manage your business. It appears that the accounting cycle is completed by capturing transaction and event information and moving it through an orderly process that results in the production of useful financial statements. Importantly, one is left with substantial records that document each transaction (the journal) and each account’s activity (the ledger).

Miscalculations based on old or inaccurate information in financial statements can raise an organization’s tax bill or even trigger an audit that results in fines. Without regular access to accurate cash flow reports, bills may go unpaid, and you may not be able to meet your loan covenants or worse – meet payroll. Even small businesses may have dozens of accounts to track and reconcile, and it only gets more complicated as firms grow.

• When you are growing a business, there are bound to be times when you need to invest money…
• Drill into any areas where actual results were significantly different from your budget and determine what caused the variance.
• Cash payments (“cash disbursements”) include any payments made by cash, check, or electronic fund transfer.
• The total number of manual journal entries can be reduced by automating journal entries and eliminating the entries with materiality thresholds (such as avoiding manual entries of amounts below $100).
• Simply put, closing the books means ensuring that every transaction or expense is recorded and all of the information that a bookkeeper needs to put together their reports—like income statements and balance sheets—is present.
• If you pay out dividends at the end of the year, take the net income or net loss on the statement of retained earnings and subtract any dividends.
• A disorganized accounting close can lead to unnecessary delays in closing activities, inaccurate financial reports, and hefty fines by regulatory authorities.