Clean up now for a smooth year-end close

Clean Up Now for a Smooth Year-End Close

For many small and mid-sized businesses, month-end closes are time-consuming and difficult. And the year-end close—which needs to present an accurate financial picture of the past 12 months—is an even more dreaded and laborious process. 

As you’ll see, it doesn’t have to be that way. 

Insero & Co. helped Catoctin Creek Distilling, a whiskey distillery in Purcellville, Virginia, implement software and processes that have streamlined their year-end closes and can help other small and medium businesses do the same.

Audit first

Insero began by auditing the distillery’s business and books to make sure that prior-year numbers agreed with tax returns and issued financials. This is an essential first step for any business to ensure that beginning retained earnings are correct and that the business has correct starting balances for the new year.

In the case of Catoctin Creek Distilling, the audit uncovered a decade’s worth of minor errors. Finding those earlier mistakes made it possible to get back on track and move forward with an accurate financial picture.

Update accounting software

Insero also updated the distillery’s software to Sage Intacct, the cloud-based accounting and financial management solution that automates complex processes and integrates with other cloud services like Salesforce and ADP. 

Having best-in-class software in place is critical to streamline and accelerate some of the additional steps that are necessary to improve the year-end close, including making sure that:

• Inventory is correct
• Payroll has been recorded correctly and is reconciled to payroll records
• Gross profit margin for the year is accurate
• PPP and SBA loans are recorded properly, along with any loan forgiveness

If any of those numbers are off, Sage Intacct’s dashboards and other features make it easy to dig into the numbers to identify missing or incorrectly recorded data.

Outsource as needed

As Catoctin Creek Distilling learned, it can be much easier to outsource some or all accounting and financial management activities—including tasks related to year-end closes—to outside consultants who are experienced and reliable. 

For the distillery, it made sense to outsource the audit of their financials to Insero, as well as outsourcing mundane tasks like coding payroll and the company’s credit cards. Doing so simplified the year-end close and freed the internal team to focus on more business-forward initiatives.

Get the support you need

Whether you need help with your year-end close or other accounting and financial management tasks, Insero & Co. is here to help. As a public accounting firm with decades of experience, we offer a wide range of outsourcing and co-sourcing solutions on a temporary or long-term basis to businesses of all sizes.