5 Accounting Decisions to Make as Year-end Approaches

Count down to the new year has begun. Now is the time to review your financial journey, where you are and where you are heading to, wrap up pending tasks to accomplish goals for 2023 and plan what you want to accomplish in 2024.

Year-end accounting plan looks a little different for everyone. It’s a bespoke plan tailored for every business across varied industries. The last session of the fiscal year is more than just year-end close, making strategic decisions to tie up loose ends, paving the way for a smooth transition to 2024 and aligning new year resolutions.

Here are the five decisions you need to make to tune up your business and stay on track.

Determine for Finish Line

With the clock ticking in 2023, it is a busy time as you are juggling with several accounting tasks. Your accounting books should be organized, up-to-date, and ready for the transition into the new year.

Review your financial statements like income statement, cash flow statement, balance sheet to have a glimpse of where your business stands financially. As you review and categorize transactions, identify discrepancies and record pending entries.

Year-end is also a great opportunity to ensure your accounts balance, and everything is in order for the new year 2024. Reconcile balance sheet, catch up accounting backlog, and fix the discrepancies if any to determine your business’s bottom line. Make strategic, data-driven decisions for next year that help to maximize revenue, minimize your costs, grow profit margins, and accelerate success.

Revisit Your Internal Processes

Take a close look at your internal processes to refine and standardize them. This helps you to increase efficiency, ensure better quality, and streamline workflow.

Speak with your team, understand their challenges, and discuss how you can do it in a better way. Of course, your staff see things from a different perspective to what you do, so it’s the best way to shed light on bottlenecks that weren’t immediately apparent.

Review each step in the backend process and question it. Why is there a need for this? Can you transform or shift processes to make it more efficient? Map a new process or optimize the existing ones with the power of outsourcing. Such improvements will add up to huge savings in time, effort and operational costs.

Be Prepared for Holiday Season

Here it comes, right on cue! It’s December already, and the holidays are right around the corner. So, it’s a perfect time to prepare for a successful holiday season and approaching tax season.

You need to collect past due invoices, account for inventory, organize business receipts, reconcile bank accounts and credit cards, review accounts payable and receivable, and gather requisite documents to close your books at year-end.

Don’t take on all of the responsibilities. Share the load with outsourcing partner. Ease through the holiday season with the extended support. It is key to boosting profits and minimizing stress as you head into the final days of the year. Close the year with excellence and confidence and regain financial control!

Make Smart Move for 2024 Tax Season

The 2024 tax season is just a few months away. It’s a good time to think about tax preparation and ensure whether your books are audit ready or not.

Being a small business owner, you often struggle with regulatory changes, compliance requirements, and bookkeeping and accounting needs. Hiring an in-house accounting team can be expensive as it entails costs of salaries, benefits, and ongoing training upfront and continuous development.

By outsourcing, you can move confidently into tax season 2024 while avoiding any costly and time-consuming disruptions to your daily operations.

Over the past few years, small and medium businesses have indeed recognized the value of partnering with outsourced accounting services.

37% of small businesses already outsource their accounting process.

In fact, looking ahead to 2024 — it’s a smart move that can contribute to thriving businesses. You gain instant access to a team of accountants with years of experience across a variety of industries. Also, this move could substantially reduce costs and processing time.

Reclaim Critical Hours by Delegating Bookkeeping to Extended Team

Daily bookkeeping and accounting tasks eat away limited time and personnel. Your internal team is overwhelmed, reducing the quality of work and efficiency. And the books are still left disorganized.

Imagine what you could do with that time if you could delegate bookkeeping to an extended team.

“Outsourced accounting allows me to focus on … running restaurant and satisfying customers,” said Andy Clark, restaurant owner in Austin. “By reclaiming critical hours, I am able to expand customer base, enrich market opportunities, or even add new dishes in the menu which is ideally leading to greater profitability.”

The decision to outsource partial or complete accounting processes enables you to have much-needed time to focus on core activities and processes that need to be carried out in 2024. Outsourcing professionals handle daily transaction coding, accounts payable, accounts receivable, reconciliations and manage requisite financial reporting.

As you step into 2024 and beyond, some curveballs are bound to come your way. That is why you need to cultivate foresight, adaptability, resilience and a proactive approach.

By taking these five decisions today, you will brace up for the upcoming challenges and set a foundation for the years that follow. Your business will not just survive in 2024; it will thrive.