With the holidays approaching, it’s a good time to review upcoming deadlines and avoid tax season stress by tidying up the administrative side of your business. Keeping track of all of this can be daunting, so here’s a general checklist to keep it organized.
Start wrapping up bookkeeping
If you start wrapping up the books by November/December, tax season is a breeze because you’ll only have one month of bookkeeping outstanding instead of the whole year. I recommend February 10th as the hard deadline. This leaves plenty of time for your CPA to work through your tax return. Below is a quick-guide to closing the books if you’re doing it yourself, tailored towards accounting software users.
Categorize all business transactions from bank accounts and credit cards.
Reconcile all bank accounts and credit cards in your accounting software to each month’s bank statements.
Record any cash expenses that weren’t captured by a bank account feed.
Verify you’ve split deductible interest and nondeductible principal portions from your loan payments.
Reconcile your loan final balance in your accounting software to the year-end lender statement. Most lenders provide an end-of-year interest and final balance breakdown upon request.
Verify payroll liabilities are correct, and that gross wages are expensed correctly. Reconcile to a W3 (or a year-end summary report from your payroll provider).
Verify equipment purchases over $2,500 are categorized to an asset account to be depreciated and not in an expense account.
Review P&L and Balance Sheets for the whole year
Send books to CPA for tax time!
Finalize payroll for employees by Dec. 31st
Adjusting payroll after the year ends is much more difficult, sometimes payroll providers have a few weeks of leeway for adjustments before they file W2s, but the timeline is tight and adjusting after that means amending W2s and resending employees corrected copies. If your business is an S-Corp entity, verify that all owners had payroll for the year and were marked exempt from certain Washington payroll taxes, if applicable. Consult with your CPA for advice.
Gather W9s from vendors now, file 1099s by Jan. 31st
Thank yourself later by gathering W9s from contractor vendors now, to save yourself the Jan 25th scramble to get everybody fill out their SSN/EIN information. Before you panic~ not every vendor needs to fill out a W9. Remember these two rules.
$2,000 threshold, if you paid vendors over $2,000 for services then 1099 is required.
Corporations don’t require 1099s (most large companies).
Consult with your CPA about specific filing requirements.
Check that estimated tax payments were paid, if applicable
Double check that all of your estimated tax payments were paid for the year. Not everyone needs to make estimated payments, consult with your CPA to confirm. Below is the payment schedule for 2026 taxes.
Q1 payments due: 04/15/2026
Q2 payments due: 06/15/2026
Q3 payments due: 09/15/2026
Q4 payments due: 01/15/2027
Get Festive!
You can coexist as an administrative guru and part-time Santa Clause, don’t forget to take some time for yourself these holidays. Spend time with family, argue over who made the best Christmas dish, and play some team-boardgames that always end up getting a bit intense with a certain competitive family member…
Happy Holidays from Oakview Bookkeeping!
