Your Simple Year-End Financial Checklist

Maria Fitz
6 days ago
2 min read

Every December, we hear the same sentence from business owners: “I swear I was just sending my tax paperwork… how is it that time again?”

We get it. The end of the year sneaks up on everyone, especially when you’re juggling clients, holiday sales, family events, shipping deadlines, or trying to wrap things up before taking a few days off.

The good news is year-end financial prep doesn’t need to be stressful or complicated. In fact, with a little intentional cleanup, you can walk into January feeling more organized and grounded than you have all year.

Let’s make this simple. Here’s the “no-panic” version of your year-end checklist, the one real business owners use and stick to.

1. Reconcile your accounts

If you’ve ever put together a puzzle and realized one piece is missing or in the wrong place, that’s exactly what unreconciled accounts feel like.

Reconciling is just making sure your bank accounts, credit cards, and payment processors match what’s in your bookkeeping software. When they match, the whole picture makes sense. When they don’t… everything downstream gets messy.

This step alone makes tax season 10x easier.

2. Clear out all uncategorized transactions

We all have them:

that Amazon charge
that “mystery” Starbucks receipt
that thing you know was business-related but forgot to tag

Think of this step like cleaning out the junk drawer: It always feels bigger than it is, but once it’s done, everything else becomes simpler.

3. Double-check your income

The biggest mistakes we see aren’t on the expense side, they’re in income tracking.

Sometimes sales get entered twice. Sometimes they never make it into the books at all. Sometimes Stripe or Square fees get mis-handled.

A quick check now can save a lot of backtracking later.

4. Review payroll (even if it’s just you on payroll)

If you run payroll, take one minute to confirm your year-to-date totals match your payroll reports. If something’s off, it’s much easier to catch it now than in February when you’re trying to file things quickly.

5. Look at your spending trends

This is actually our favorite part. It’s where you’ll notice things like:

Subscriptions you don’t use anymore
Expenses that crept up
Tools you are using that are actually helping you grow
Areas where you’re overspending without realizing it

This isn’t about judging your spending, it’s about understanding it so you can walk into next year with clarity.

6. Gather receipts + mileage

Don’t overthink this step. Just make sure anything meaningful is uploaded, saved, or logged. That’s it.

Future-you will thank present-you when April comes around.

7. Run your reports

Before the year ends, pull:

Profit & Loss
Balance Sheet
Cash Flow

You don’t need to interpret every line. You just need to make sure nothing looks obviously wrong like a negative number where it shouldn’t be, or an income category that’s inexplicably empty.

Putting it all together

Doing a little bit of cleanup now creates a calmer January and a smoother tax season... You deserve that breathing room.

And if this list felt helpful but overwhelming, that’s exactly why WRC exists. Helping business owners get financially organized without judgment, stress, or confusing instructions. That’s what we’re here for.