Year End Part Three: Chart of Accounts

November 21, 2023

So, we have reconciled the accounts and we have reviewed and entered our personal expenses and transactions in preparation for year end. Now we turn to the Chart of Accounts, which looks something like this in QuickBooks Online:



Sample Chart of Accounts


Here, you will review each account to look for potential errors. Most of these accounts you should be familiar with and be able to look at the balance to determine accuracy. For example, if you carry small amounts of inventory and you know how much you have, maybe in the above example you see the $596.25 and are able to quickly determine that it looks accurate. If you don’t carry inventory at all, you might want to dig deeper to determine what is causing this amount to show up as inventory on your books.



The more obvious places to look would be any account that has “Uncategorized” in the title. These definitely need to be addressed and categorized correctly before moving on to the next steps. While you should be able to review these accounts and spot errors without too much trouble, you may have difficulty in knowing exactly how to correct them. This is where you want someone familiar with your accounting system to help out.

If you are in this position, we are happy to help. We will review your system and help to highlight and address these kinds of errors. Reach out to learn more!

October 14, 2026
Understanding Your Numbers Before Year-End
By Alexander R Li • September 18, 2026
Most of the time, your books are for you. They tell you what you earned, what you spent, and what you can count on next month. Every so often, though, someone outside your business needs to trust your numbers too. A bank deciding on a loan. An auditor with questions. An investor or a buyer doing their homework. In those moments, clean books stop being a convenience and become protection. The quality of your records is what stands between a routine process and an expensive problem.
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Growth is the goal. More customers, more revenue, maybe your first few employees. It is exciting, and it is also the moment when many business owners discover that the way they have been handling their books no longer keeps up. The setup that worked when you were a solo operator doing a hundred transactions a month starts to strain when you are doing five times that with a team. The good news is that this is predictable, which means you can build for it before it becomes a problem.