Xero Top Tips - Year End Processes

With many year ends fast approaching or having just recently passed below is a useful checklist of processes to complete before letting us know that your accounts are ready to be prepared.

1. The Bank – please ensure that all transactions are reconciled for the year and that the “Bank Reconciliation” report agrees to your physical (or online) bank statements. (Also, please continue to reconcile post year end transactions as we will look at this too when preparing your accounts.)

2. VAT Return – Please make sure that you have submitted your VAT return for the period that covers your year end.

3. Mis-postings & Duplicates – By running the “Account Transactions” report you can check all the postings you’ve made in Xero in the year and this will allow you to pick up on any mis-postings of transactions or any duplicates with bills and spend moneys.

4. Debtors (amounts owed to you) – Please check, by running the report called “Aged Receivables Detail”, that Xero has all amounts that are owed to you at your year end included as invoices. These will be amounts that are due to you from a sales invoice dated before your year end that you didn’t receive until after your year end.

5. Creditors (amounts you owe to suppliers) –This is the opposite of debtors. The report you need to run this time is the “Aged Payables Detail”. Please ensure that all bills that are dated within your year end but that you haven’t paid until after your year end are included here.

6. Uploading PDFs/ pictures of bills/ invoices – Uploading PDFs or pictures to transactions is a great tool that will not only mean that you may not need to drop off a big box of records to us but also may save time when trying to find a document several months later. You can use this function on bills, invoices, or receive/ spend money transactions (click on the “Add Details” button on the reconcile screen) just look out for this little button at the top. An alternative to this is to use Hubdoc – which is free with a Standard subscription of Xero!

My last two points are more general to the year end process and not necessarily Xero tips.

7. Notes/ summaries – Please feel free to provide some notes or bullet points either in a letter, email or a phone call to just summarise any major changes or to point out anything odd that has occurred in the year.

8. Stock sheets – We aim to get stock sheets out to you as close to your year end as possible. Alternatively, write all your stock down/ record it any way you prefer to as close to your year end as possible.