How to prepare your finance team for year-end accounts
As the end of financial year is fast approaching, Finance Directors (FDs) and Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) across every sector will be looking to their teams to complete an efficient and focused close schedule.
Learn what you can do to prepare your finance team for year end accounts. Keep reading below.
What are year-end accounts?
The main body of the work year-end financials includes preparing and closing three core documents:
- The balance sheet offers a summary of the business’s current performance, including assets, liabilities and equity.
- Income statements allow you to see at a glance whether your business has been profitable at a particular time by itemising expenses and revenue, which might have resulted in a profit or a loss.
- Cash flow statements reconcile your opening account statement with your closing account statement for the period, explaining where the money has been directed.
The biggest challenge is reconciling all of the hundreds of data points that come together to create the most accurate picture. This is a huge task for the whole year – although it is make easier if your business has ensured each month end is completed accurately through the year.
When is the year-end accounting period?
The end of the financial year can mean slightly different things to different businesses.
There is plenty to do within a relatively short space of time, so keeping on top of things can be challenging. It’s useful to create a plan of attack, breaking down what needs to be achieved into tasks and assigning them to specific team members.
Prepare your finance team for your business financial year-end by treating it like a project with a plan and action points, as well as a means of keeping track of who is doing what and the progress made.
And don’t forget, as the end of year accounting period is a stressful time, make sure your people get enough breaks and are working together to share the workload.
The tax year (or fiscal year) always runs from 6 April to 5 April and the majority of businesses use this date for their accounting year too – hence the need for everything to hit the same deadline.
However some businesses prefer to choose another date for their business year-end. Many find it convenient to use 31 March as the end date for example, others follow the calendar year.
More resources for a smooth Financial year-end
Year-end accounts checklist
Use our year-end accounts checklist for a smooth financial close
Month-end accounts checklist
A smooth year-end is much easier when you have stuck to an efficient month-end process through the year.
Strategic CFO: Myth or Reality?
How can you be more strategic as a CFO? And what might be holding you back?