With the end of the year here, it is time to take advantage of some of the tools QuickBooks Online Accountant provides for streamlining the year-end process. Use these QBO Accountant tools to review and troubleshoot your clients’ books. Note: Many of the URLs included here point you to official QuickBooks Support or Help websites specific to tool use or problem-solving topics related to areas for which these tools are commonly used.
Prep for taxes
Review your client's accounts and make adjusting journal entries at the end of the year using the Prep for taxes tool. This works just like a traditional trial balance by allowing you to make sure all debits and credits equal out and making any minor adjustments to account balances as needed. In addition, you can map and export your client's accounts to ProConnect Tax Online.
Reclassify transactions
The Reclassify Transactions tool enables you to batch move transactions between accounts or make the same correction to multiple transactions.
Write off invoices
Use the Write off invoices tool to cancel and zero-out bad invoices that will not get paid. If you are dealing with an invoice from a closed period, follow these steps.
Undo reconciliations
If your clients have incomplete reconciliations that must be finished or they finished reconciliations by posting an adjustment to make the reconciliation balance, you may need to resolve their reconciliation discrepancies, or undo past reconciliations and troubleshoot their reconciliations.
Payroll at Year-end
If payroll is part of your client’s file, there is a lot to do to close-out the payroll year. See Insightful Accountant’s "QuickBooks Online Year-end Payroll Guide for 2021-2022."
Reporting tools
Save yourself time by setting default date ranges and filters for financial reports. In the future, every report you open will go to the specified date range.
Management reports
Make an impression with your clients by creating personalized and professionally branded Management report packs.
Close the books
When you are ready, close the clients’ books to prevent unwanted changes before filing taxes.
ProConnect Tax Online
If you "do tax," it is easier than ever to transition your client’s data from QuickBooks Online to ProConnect Tax Online and start their tax return once all their accounting data is ready.
The tasks outlined above should help you meet the minimum requirements of reviewing your clients’ QuickBooks Online data and guide you in the other tasks you need to accomplish as you prepare them for both their tax returns and new year.
Acknowledgments and Disclosures
Content and graphics used within this feature were derived in part, or adapted by the author, from Intuit or QuickBooks source materials, including (but not limited to) the QuickBooks Accountant year-end checklist and QuickBooks Support Help Websites (featured in the various URLs listed within this article), and other related content. Adapted source materials published within this feature by Insightful Accountant are for educational purposes only.
As used herein, QuickBooks and QuickBooks Online refer to one or more registered trademarked products of Intuit Inc., a publicly-traded corporation headquartered in Mountain View, California.