The Year-End Checklist

Two year-ends matter: the calendar year (donor statements and 1099s are always January to December) and your fiscal year (the board's financial statements and next year's budget). If yours is a calendar-year organization they're the same week. Here's the order that avoids redoing work, with the GoodBooks page for each step.

Before December 31

1. Flag 1099 payees. Ten minutes now, an afternoon in January. Open each contractor, attorney, or landlord you paid by check and turn on Track payments for 1099. See Tracking 1099 Vendors.
2. Chase the outstanding. Run A/R Aging (if you invoice) and the Members roster for lapsed renewals; a December reminder often clears both.
3. Check donor emails and addresses. Statements go to the address on the contact. The Contacts list shows who has no email; fix the ones you can, and note the Do not email / Do not mail flags.
4. Turn on bank-account giving if you haven't; year-end gifts are the big ones and the fee cap matters most there. See Accepting Online Donations.

The first two weeks of January

1. Enter everything dated last year. The last deposit, the checks written on December 30, the bank fees. Date them when they happened.
2. Reconcile December. Bank Reconciliation for every bank and credit card account, then attach the statements.
3. Send giving statements. Reports → Annual Giving Statements: review the roster, then email or print the batch. See Year-End Giving Statements. Gifts received by December 31 (postmarked, for mailed checks) belong to the old year.
4. Run the 1099 Preparation report for the closed year, download the CSV, and hand it to your e-file service or accountant. Forms are due to recipients by January 31.

Fiscal year end (whenever yours is)

1. Post the last adjustments. Accruals, depreciation if you book it, and anything your accountant sends over, as manual journal entries dated the last day of the year.
2. Print the board packet. Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and Statement of Changes in Net Assets as of year end, plus Budget vs. Actual. The quick-date buttons handle the dates; see A Guide to Your Financial Reports. Restricted activity shows in its own columns automatically.
3. Set the Book Close Date. After the board accepts the statements, set Settings → Accounting & Controls → Book Close Date to the last day of the year. Nothing can be posted, edited, or voided on or before it, so what you reported stays reported.
4. Copy the budget forward. Open the current budget and use Copy to next year, then adjust; see Creating and Managing Budgets.

Things you don't have to do

• No closing entries. Prior-year surplus rolls into net assets automatically at your fiscal year start.
• No year-end "close" procedure. The Book Close Date is the whole process.
• No reprinting statements for a late correction; correct the gift, re-run the statement for that donor only, and resend.

Good to know

• If a donor asks for a statement in December for gifts to date, the giving statement report accepts any date range.
• Your accountant can do steps 9 and 10 directly in your books through Accountant Access, without a shared login.