QuickBooks 2011: The Missing Manual

Generating Year-End Financial Reports

At the end of every year, tax preparation stimulates a frenzy of financial reporting as companies submit fiscal year Profit & Loss reports (The Balance Sheet) and balance sheets (Generating a Balance Sheet Report) as part of their tax returns. But tax forms aren’t the only reason for year-end reports. Before you hand over your company file to your accountant or prepare final reports for your tax return, run year-end reports for these reasons, too:

• If you work with more than one currency, adjust account balances to reflect the currencies’ current values based on exchange rates (Other Helpful Financial Reports explains how).

• Inspect year-end reports for funny numbers. They might mean that you posted a transaction to the wrong account or created a journal entry incorrectly.

• Analyze your annual results to spot problems with your operations or look for ways to improve.

After you complete your initial review of the year-end reports and make any corrections to transactions, generate a revised set of year-end reports. Then your accountant (if you work with one) is next in line to see your company file (Sharing a Company File with Your Accountant).

GEM IN THE ROUGH: QuickBooks’ Year-End Guide

QuickBooks’ Help contains a guide to typical year-end tasks, which is especially handy if you aren’t familiar with what you have to do to wrap up a year for your business. When you choose Help→Year-End Guide, the program opens a special browser window displaying the QuickBooks ...