Before the end of 2026, business owners should review their income, expenses, accounts receivable, accounts payable, bank reconciliations, GST/HST records, payroll, financial statements, tax position, and upcoming filing obligations with their accountant. A year-end review can also help identify accounting issues and support tax and financial planning for 2027.
The weeks before your fiscal year-end are some of the most valuable on the calendar — not because anything dramatic needs to happen, but because this is the last window where small corrections are still easy. A missed invoice, an unreconciled account, an expense without a receipt: all fixable now, all much harder to untangle after the books are closed. A proper year-end review with your accountant helps you catch these issues early, organize your records for corporate tax filing, and walk into 2027 with a clear financial picture instead of a guess.
Why Should You Review Your Finances Before the End of 2026?
Identify Outstanding Accounting Issues
Small discrepancies compound quietly over a year — a misclassified expense here, a duplicate entry there. Reviewed monthly, they’re a two-minute fix. Reviewed once, at the very end, they’re a research project. A year-end check surfaces these while there’s still time to correct them before anything gets filed with the CRA.
Prepare for Corporate Tax Filing
Your corporate tax return is only as accurate as the books behind it. Reviewing income, expenses, and supporting documentation before year-end means your accountant can prepare your T2 tax return efficiently, without chasing down missing receipts months later.
Review Business Performance
Year-end is a natural point to step back and ask how the business actually performed — not just whether you were profitable, but where the margin came from, which expenses grew faster than revenue, and whether cash flow matched what the profit and loss statement suggests.
Plan for Upcoming Tax Obligations
Knowing your expected taxable income before your fiscal year closes gives you room to act — timing a capital purchase, adjusting a bonus, or simply setting aside the right amount so a tax bill doesn’t catch you off guard.
Improve Financial Organization for 2027
A clean handoff from one fiscal year to the next makes everything easier going forward: faster bookkeeping, simpler audits if they come up, and a stronger starting position for next year’s budgeting and tax planning.
10 Things to Review With Your Accountant Before Year-End
1. Review Your Business Income and Expenses
Start with the basics: has all revenue been recorded, and are all legitimate business expenses captured? This sounds obvious, but it’s the single most common source of year-end surprises. Cash payments that were never logged, subscriptions that were forgotten, or income from a smaller side project that didn’t make it into the main books — all of it needs to be in one place before your accountant can give you an accurate picture.
2. Check Your Accounts Receivable
Go through your outstanding customer invoices. Which ones are realistically collectible, and which have been sitting long enough that they should be written off? Carrying uncollectible receivables on your books overstates your income and, in turn, your tax position. Your accountant can advise on when a write-off is appropriate.
3. Review Accounts Payable
The same applies in the other direction — outstanding bills to suppliers and other business obligations should be current and accurate. Unrecorded payables understate your expenses, which can distort both your financial statements and your tax position for the year.
4. Reconcile Your Bank and Credit Card Accounts
Bank reconciliation is the foundation everything else is built on. If your books don’t match your actual bank and credit card statements, your financial statements can’t be trusted, and neither can the tax return based on them. Reconciling monthly is ideal; at minimum, it needs to happen before year-end close.
5. Review Your GST/HST Records
Confirm that GST/HST collected from customers has been properly recorded, and that eligible input tax credits — the GST/HST you paid on business purchases — have all been claimed. This is an area where small businesses commonly leave money on the table simply because a receipt wasn’t filed correctly.
6. Review Payroll and Employee Records
If you have employees, year-end is when payroll needs to be airtight. Confirm CPP, EI, and income tax remittances are current, and that records are ready for T4 preparation. Missing or late remittances create penalties that are entirely avoidable with a year-end check.
7. Review Business Expenses and Potential Deductions
Go through the year’s expenses with an eye for anything that might be deductible but hasn’t been properly categorized — home office costs, vehicle use, professional development, equipment. Make sure supporting documentation exists for each one; a deduction without a receipt is a deduction the CRA can challenge.
8. Review Your Financial Statements
Your three core statements should be reviewed together, not in isolation:
- Profit & Loss Statement — shows whether the business was actually profitable, and where.
- Balance Sheet — shows what the business owns and owes at a single point in time.
- Cash Flow Statement — shows whether that profit actually turned into usable cash.
A business can look profitable on paper and still be short on cash — reviewing all three together is how you catch that.
9. Discuss Your Corporate Tax Position
Ask your accountant for an estimate of your taxable income and expected tax obligations before the year closes. This is the point where proactive tax planning is still possible — after year-end, most of your options disappear.
10. Discuss Your 2027 Financial and Tax Plan
Year-end review isn’t only about closing out 2026 — it’s the natural starting point for planning 2027. Use the conversation to set a budget, revisit cash flow expectations, and flag any changes (hiring, expansion, a new revenue stream) that should factor into next year’s tax strategy.
Ready for a Year-End Review Before 2027?
The businesses that head into January with clarity are almost always the ones that reviewed their books before December closed, not after. A year-end review with an accountant in London, Ontario turns loose ends into a clean handoff — accurate financial statements, a confirmed tax position, and a plan for the year ahead.
Book your year-end review with Money Matrix Accounting Inc. and close out 2026 with your books, taxes, and 2027 plan all in order.