Year-end bookkeeping checklist to close 2026 without surprises

Closing the year means working through eight areas before December 31: bank and card accounts reconciled, revenue tied to deposits, contractors with W-9s and totals added up, payroll, loans and financing carrying the right balance, assets bought during the year, owner draws kept out of business expenses, and documents attached. Every item left open becomes a question from your CPA in February, and a CPA question is a billed hour. Start in October, because in January nothing about the year can be changed anymore.

Why this checklist starts in October, not in January

In January the year is over. The close becomes a snapshot of what happened through December 31. Asking for a W-9 in February means chasing someone who has already been paid and has no reason to reply. Buying equipment on January 2 pushes the whole effect into the next year. That is why a year-end close works like a calendar, not like a weekend task.

The checklist below is organized in blocks. Check off what is already done and turn the rest into a list with a name and a date beside every item.

Block 1: bank accounts and cards

Reconciling means comparing QuickBooks with the statement, line by line, until both ending balances match. Without it, no report for the year proves anything.

• Every business bank account reconciled through December 31, with the ending balance equal to the statement.
• Every business credit card reconciled through the statement that closes in December.
• Personal card used for business purchases: both the purchases and the reimbursement to the owner need to be recorded. Leaving that card out keeps real expense off the result.
• An account you stopped using: reconcile it through the closing date and close it in the system.
• No forced differences. A manual adjustment made only to make the statement match is a problem pushed into next year.

Block 2: revenue

Revenue is the number your CPA checks the most and the one that is wrong most often. What the business invoiced, what landed in the bank and what the processor reports have to tell the same story.

• Every deposit applied to the invoice it pays. A loose deposit becomes revenue counted twice when the invoice is recorded as well.
• The annual total from your card processor or payment platform checked against revenue on the P&L. The platform fee is an expense, not a reduction of revenue.
• Cash received recorded, including what never went through the bank.
• Customer deposits kept separate from revenue already earned.
• No stale amounts sitting in Undeposited Funds. If money has been there since August, either something was never deposited or it was deposited twice.

Block 3: contractors

The W-9 is the form where a contractor gives their name, address and TIN, their tax ID number. The IRS instructs you to get the W-9 before paying, not in January.

• A list of every contractor paid during the year, with the running total per person or company.
• A W-9 on file for each of them. The ones who disappear after getting paid are exactly the ones missing from the list.
• What was paid by card or payment platform separated out. That is usually reported by the platform on a 1099-K and stays out of the 1099-NEC.
• A contractor taxed as a corporation is usually outside the 1099-NEC, and the W-9 is what shows it.
• The 1099-NEC threshold: 600 dollars for payments through 2025 and 2,000 dollars for payments made from 2026 on, adjusted for inflation afterwards. Confirm your case with your CPA.

The detail behind each of these items is on the 1099 and W-9 for contractors page.

Block 4: payroll

• Total wages paid for the year matching your payroll system reports.
• Withheld taxes and employer taxes recorded as such, not lumped into a generic payroll expense.
• An owner paid through payroll: that amount is wages, not a draw.
• Benefits, insurance and employee reimbursements in the right account, so labor cost is not inflated.

Block 5: loans and financing

When the whole installment is booked as an expense, the business makes a debt vanish from the balance sheet and inflates the year's cost at the same time. It is the most common Balance Sheet error.

• The balance of every loan and financing at December 31 equal to the balance the lender reports.
• Each installment split in two: principal reduces the debt balance, interest is an expense of the year.
• Vehicle and equipment financing recorded as debt, with the asset on the other side.
• A loan from the owner to the business kept separate from a capital contribution. They are different things on the balance sheet.
• A line of credit carrying the amount actually drawn, not the limit.

Block 6: assets bought during the year and inventory

• A list of equipment, vehicles, machinery and significant tools bought during the year, with date, amount and receipt.
• Those items recorded as assets on the Balance Sheet, not as expenses of the month. Depreciation is your CPA's call, and they need the list.
• Inventory counted on December 31, if the business carries inventory, with the count recorded and the value adjusted in the system.
• Material for a specific job assigned to that cost, not to a general purchases account.

Block 7: owner draws and odd balances

• Personal spending paid by the business recorded as an owner draw, not as an expense. Groceries, family travel, household bills.
• Money the owner put into the business recorded as a contribution.
• Opening Balance Equity at zero. If it carries a balance, something entered the system without an offsetting entry.
• No account on the Balance Sheet carrying a balance you cannot explain in one sentence.
• Nothing left in uncategorized, and no transactions parked in an Ask My Accountant type of account.

Block 8: attached documents

Attaching the document to the transaction in QuickBooks costs seconds now and saves hours later. Your CPA's question arrives with the answer already beside it.

• The receipt for every asset bought during the year.
• The agreement and statement for every loan and financing.
• The W-9 for every contractor, stored with their record.
• Receipts for large expenses and for anything that falls outside the usual pattern of the business.
• The annual report from the payment processor.

The October to April calendar

What belongs to your CPA, and not to you

Checking every box here gets the books ready. It files nothing. Depreciation, extensions, calculating the tax and submitting forms to the IRS are your CPA's work. GS Brasil organizes the books and hands over the package. It does not prepare or file taxes, and it does not submit anything to the IRS.

If the split between the roles is still unclear, the article on bookkeeper, accountant and tax preparer shows who answers for what.