1Accountant year-end checklist

Accountant & Bookkeeper End-of-Financial-Year

ChecklistSingapore – November 2017

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IntroductionYear-end is usually the busiest period for accounting and bookkeeping firms. It’s when you’re checking in with clients, consolidating data, preparing reports and ticking off statutory deadlines. With so many clients, it can be hard to stay afloat.

That’s why we’ve produced an eBook of checklist items that will help make end of financial year easier, ensuring you won’t miss a thing.

Aprilina Loh, CPA ConnectsXero Platinum Partner

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1 In your accounting software,

check that prior financial year period has been locked.

2 Confirm that Opening Balances

for the Financial Year are correct.

If you’re using your accounting software for the first time, confirm your Opening Balance for the Financial Year in 3 easy steps:

1. Check conversion balances and conversion date

2. Check adjustments on the conversion balance are nil

3. Check conversion balances are saved and locked

Accountant year-end checklist

Accountant year-end checklist

3 Review reconciliation reports

Check Trial Balance for reasonableness

Check General Ledger exceptions for issues

Check Bank reconciliation

Run a Bank Reconciliation Summary report

Check all bank accounts are reconciled

Check that bank balances in your accounting software match that of your bank statement

Xero matches your imported bank statement lines with transactions you’ve entered. The statement line details compare with transactions in Xero. They match on amount, then closest (due) date, then the contact name. You can use the Xero Adviser tool Find & Recode to quickly identify and correct errors in bank reconciliation.

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Direct bank feedsBank feeds let you automatically import account transactions into Xero from your bank or other financial institution.

Xero receives direct bank feeds from the following local banks:

Once bank feeds are up and running, you’ll no longer need to download and import bank statements to get transactions into Xero.

6Accountant year-end checklist

Xero users can quickly generate and customise a Billable Expenses - Outstanding Report in one single click.

4 Closing accounts receivable and bad debts

Check that all invoices are entered

Review credit notes and allocate a credit balance to an existing invoice

Check draft and approved quotes and copy to invoice where applicable

Send out year-end invoices and statements to customers

Identify and write off bad debts

Check for potential invoice mismatches when reconciling a statement line

5 Closing Accounts Payable

Produce an Aged Payables Detail / Summary report

Check that all bills are entered

Request statements from suppliers

Review credit notes and allocate credit to an existing bill

Check draft and approved purchase orders and copy to bill/invoice where applicable

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6 Stocktake & Inventory

Produce an Inventory Item List report and export it to Excel for stocktake

Produce an Inventory Item Details / Summary report

Perform a stocktake and record any adjustments for the inventory items

Accountant year-end checklist 8

7 Fixed assets

Produce a Fixed Asset Reconciliation report

Check all assets have been added and registered

Dispose or sell assets as required

Calculate depreciation on registered fixed assets

8 Unrealised Foreign Exchange gains/losses

Translate foreign exchange gains/losses for balance sheet items denominated in foreign currencies. Use foreign exchange rates from an official source, approved by the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore

A Business Edition Xero subscription lets you do it all. Send invoices, quotes and purchase orders. Or receive bills and payments in over 160 currencies.

Exchange rates from XE.com update in Xero every hour.

XE.com is recognised by the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) as an Acceptable Exchange Rates Source for Singapore GST.

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automate, automate, automate.Set up a repeating journal in Xero if you want to automate a series of recurring journal entries. You can insert placeholders into your repeating journal for values. These depend on the date your repeating journal is created. For example, ‘Consulting fees for [Month-1]’.

9 Contacts review

Check, merge and archive any contacts

Add financial details to a contact (default accounts, tax rates, bank etc)

10 End of Financial Year adjustments

Reverse previous year journals

Record any year end adjusting journals and transactions as needed (eg. bad debt)

11 Review

Re-run the Reconciliation Reports if required

Accountant year-end checklist

Accountant year-end checklist 10

12 End-of-Financial-Year reporting

Review organisational and financial setting

Review the Chart of Accounts

Review report code mapping

Review client report fields

Run the Financial Report template (or Copy & Edit prior year published template)

Review applicable templates including:

Director’s Report

Auditor’s Report

Profit and Loss statement

Balance Sheet Statement

Notes to the Financial Statements

Save Draft when ready for review

Publish the Financial Report template when ready for client viewing

Set Lock Dates to stop all users for making changes after financial year is completed

As an Administrator in Xero HQ, you can set up and manage your clients and practice staff. You can also edit their user permissions.

When closing out the Financial Year, you’ll want to set Lock Dates to stop all users except Advisors from making changes on and before EOFY

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Sole Proprietor PartnershipLimited Liability/Limited Partnership

Private Limited Company

AC

RA

filin

g

Business renewal yearly subject to clearance from CPF Board for medisave payment

No filing required Annual renewal by precedent partner declaration

Filing of Annual General Meeting

Signed Compilation Report

Signed resolution to be maintained by Corporate secretary

Online filing of XBRL report (Private Exempted Company not required except if it is insolvent)

IRA

S fil

ing

Estimated chargeable income Not Applicable Not Applicable Applicable Applicable

Forms Form B for sole proprietor with annual revenue below SGD 500,000 and line statements for Revenue, Gross Profit, Total Deductible Expense and Net Taxable Income, or

Form B or B1 for entity with annual revenue above SGD 500,000 and Certified Accounting Reports:

Profit & Loss

Balance Sheet

Notes to account

Tax computation (Optional)

Form P for entity with annual revenue below SGD 500,000 and line statements for Revenue, Gross Profit, Total Deductible Expense, Net Taxable Income, Percentage of allocation to each partner, or

Form P for entity with annual revenue above SGD 500,000 and Certified Accounting Reports:

Profit & Loss

Balance Sheet

Notes to account

Tax computation

Form CS for entity with annual revenue below SGD 5 million, or

Form C for entity with annual revenue above SGD 5 million.

Signed Form C for Paper filing

Signed Audited Report

Tax computation statement

13 Statutory requirements – Singapore

This checklist highlights some key things accountants and bookkeepers in Singapore must be aware of during the Financial Year-end, but is not intended to be an exhaustive. For more information, please refer to the ACRA and IRAS websites.

12Accountant year-end checklist

Elaine Lim, AgereXero Platinum Partner

Managing year-end is a breeze with Xero

“Since Xero, we’ve stopped just doing

accounts monthly, quarterly, or annually. We’re able to proactively provide advice to our clients on an ongoing basis. And use the end-of-financial-year to build even more

trust with our clients.

More than 100,000 accountants and bookkeepers are already Xero-certified

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1 Check that prior financial year period has been locked.

Confirming the basics

Check conversion balances and conversion date

Check adjustments on the conversion balance are nil

Check conversion balances are saved and locked

2 Review reconciliation reports

Check Trial Balance for reasonableness

Check General Ledger exceptions for issues

Run a Bank Reconciliation Summary report

Check all bank accounts are reconciled

Check bank balances in Xero match balance on bank statement (identify duplicates, deleted and/or manual bank transactions)

Identify exceptions, follow-up and rectify (Find and Recode) any errors

3 Closing accounts receivable and bad debts

Run a Billable Expenses – Outstanding report

Check that all invoices are entered

Review credit notes and allocate a credit balance to an existing invoice

Check draft and approved quotes and copy to invoice where applicable

Send out year-end invoices and statements to customers

Identify and write off bad debts

Check for potential invoice mismatches when reconciling a statement line

4 Closing accounts payable

Run an Aged Payables Detail / Summary report

Check that all bills are entered

Request statements from suppliers

Review credit notes and allocate credit to an existing bill

Check draft and approved purchase orders and copy to bill/invoice where applicable

5 Stocktake and inventory

Run an Inventory Item List report and export it to Excel for stocktake

Run an Inventory Item Details / Summary report

Perform a stocktake and record any adjustments for the inventory items

6 Fixed assets

Run a Fixed Asset Reconciliation report

Check all assets have been added and registered

Dispose or sell assets as required

Run depreciation on registered fixed assets

7 Unrealised Foreign Exchange gains/losses

Translate foreign exchange gains/losses for balance sheet items denominated in foreign currencies. Use foreign exchange rates from an official source, approved by the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore

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8 Contacts review

Check, merge and archive any contacts

Add financial details to a contact (default accounts, tax rates, bank etc)

9 EOFY adjustments

Reverse previous year journals

Record any year end adjusting journals and transactions as needed (eg. bad debt)

Set up repeating journals with a placeholder for coming year

10 Review

Re-run the Reconciliation Reports if required

11 EOFY financial reporting

Set Lock Dates to stop all users except Advisors for making changes on and before EOFY

Review organisational and financial setting

Review the Chart of Accounts

Review report code mapping

Review client report fields

Run the Financial Report template (or Copy & Edit prior year published template)

Review applicable templates including:

Director’s Report

Auditor’s Report

Profit and Loss statement

Balance Sheet Statement

Notes to the Financial Statements

Save Draft when ready for review

Publish the Financial Report template when ready for client viewing

Set Lock Dates to stop all users for making changes after financial year is completed

Disclaimer: This is checklist is not exhaustive and practices may differ by accounting practice and the software utilised.

16Accountant year-end checklist