At the end of the financial year, accountants and financial auditors prepare all accounts, financial statements, and any document related to the financial transactions that took place during that year. Since it is a difficult and challenging period, a year-end audit checklist must be prepared to close this financial year without overlooking anything important. In this article, Alsun Bookkeeping and Taxation explains the importance of year-end audit checklists and their key points.
Contents
What is Year-End Accounting Closure?
The closure of year-end accounting is the time when accountants review financial transactions through the fiscal year to know the losses and profits, identify weakness and strength points, and prepare for the new fiscal year. As the accountants review many aspects, they need a year-end checklist that clarify the key points that are required to be reviewed and prepared to close the financial year successfully.
The Importance of Year-End Audit Checklist
A year end accounting checklist is important for ensuring that the process of accounting closure for a fiscal year is accurate and complete, complying with financial procedures and laws and regulations in the UAE. Here are the reasons for its importance:
- Accuracy Assurance
A year end accounting checklist helps accountants and auditors to complete their tasks of reviewing various financial transactions and records accurately, avoiding the risk of missing any financial statement.
- Tax Compliance
This checklist ensures that the accountants prepare every statement that is related to tax authority requirements and are done in compliance with legal standards.
- Time and Effort Saving
The closure of year end accounting is a tough and complicated process, and putting down a checklist outlining the main tasks within a specific deadline helps the accountants to do their work and responsibilities without delays or mistakes due to stress.
- Financial Improvement
One of the main benefits of a financial year end checklist is giving the business a comprehensive vision for the previous fiscal year to determine the strength and weakness points with putting improvement plans in place for the next fiscal year.
Key Points in Your Year-End Audit Checklist
- Put a schedule for the financial close
Putting a schedule for the financial close is a useful tool to help accountants to identify all the tasks required in financial year end closure and create a clear strategy to do them effectively. This schedule will give you the chance to break down the workload and avoid the stress by distributing the tasks to the team members properly to guarantee a smooth closing process.
- Collect all important documents
It is essential to keep accurate financial records to make sure all transactions are recorded properly and any differences between accounts are solved. This step includes collecting documents and reports from financial institutions and vendors. Your documents must be accurate and complete to avoid the errors and delay in the accounting closure. The common documents you should collect include, but are not limited to, bank statements, payroll reports, tax returns, credit card statements, sales records, and loan information.
- Review accounts payable and receivable
In the year end accounting closure, the accountants have to review the accounts payable to ensure that all payables are settled properly without penalties and all the receivables are collected and recorded properly. They also have to follow up on any receivables that have not been collected yet to maintain them before the end of the closure process.
- Collect past-due invoices.
The year end accounting closing is the time to follow up and collect any money that customers owe to your company. You may help the customers pay their invoices by setting a due date or putting a payment schedule in place to ensure that they pay before the end of the process.
- Review employee expenses
The accountants have to ensure that all the employee expenses are submitted and recorded correctly and on time, as it has major financial consequences, especially when they prepare the tax reports.
- Consider payroll records
The accountants have not forgotten the payroll records, as they must review them and make sure that the records are accurate to avoid any issues in the tax report and employee entitlements.
- Inventory count and valuation
At the end of the fiscal year, you have to track the count of inventory you have, record it, calculate the value of it, and compare it with the amount of the past year to put your plans of improvement according to this comparison.
- Review fixed assets
The accountants have to track the assets and ensure that all the fixed assets are recorded accurately in the financial records.
- Prepare backups for important informations
All the documents and information you gathered have to be recorded accurately and stored safely to access them easily later and avoid missing them.
- Set plans and strategies for the business
The final step of preparing the year end accounting closure is planning and setting new goals to improve the company’s economic situation based on the company’s performance and the figure achieved last year.
How does Alsun Bookkeeping and Taxation help you?
Alsun Bookkeeping and Taxation is a FTA-registered tax and accounting agency in Dubai. We provide professional accounting services, including the year end accounting closure. Our expert accountants prepare well for this process and put down a simplified year-end audit checklist to avoid missing any phase in the closure process.
Our accountants know well the laws and regulations in the UAE from their experience of more than 10 years. Our team uses advanced programs and techniques to track your financial transactions and records and ensure that every financial statement is submitted in order to achieve an efficient year-end closure.
Our services are not limited to accounting services only but also include all taxation and bookkeeping services at the highest standards of quality and accuracy. Trust our team and let us handle your accounting processes without wasting time, effort, and money.
Conclusion
At the end of this article, let us summarize all the information mentioned about the year-end audit checklist. We explain that this checklist is one of the useful tools in the financial year closure process, as it ensures that the accountants cover all the aspects required to be reviewed, submitted, and recorded during this process. It is important for subdividing major tasks, facilitating the process, and preventing missing any information.
Alsun Bookkeeping and Taxation is a certified tax and accounting agency that is ready to assist your business in closing your financial year efficiently. Contact us today!
FAQs
What is the checklist for year-end closing?
The checklist for year-end closing is a list of important items that must be reviewed and done in order to complete the process of the year-end accounting closing.
What is the year-end audit process?
The year-end audit process is the process of reviewing all financial transactions that are done through a financial year to determine loss and gain and set new strategies.