✅The Finance Year-End Checklist

Dec 23, 2024

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Year-End Checklists

It’s the end of the year and there are a lot of things you should be thinking about as company leaders as 2024 comes to a close:

Below is a summary of items that I often think about at the end of the year.

Better Reporting: Implement a better chart of accounts and department list to start 2025. Check out my sample Chart of Accounts and Departments
Better Forecasts: Planning for 2025 is going to be harder given everything happening in the tech industry. Check out the recording of the OnlyCFO Annual Planning webinar from last week.
Finance Leadership: Good finance leaders can help save a lot of money and even help drive revenue. Smaller companies can hire a fractional CFO (which I can help with :) and if you are larger then get a full-time CFO for 2025.
Right Tools: Make sure to evaluate your finance tech stack. It is sometimes a lot easier to implement in finance tools in a new fiscal year if possible.
Drive Revenue: Spend time doing proper sales capacity planning for 2025, especially in light of all the changes to the industry. Also, consider re-evaluating your pricing model (times are changing so your pricing model might need to as well).

R&D Tax Credit: Lots of early stage companies leave money on the table here. This is a tax credit for R&D expenses that allows companies to offset federal incomes taxes OR offset up to $500,000 of qualifying payroll taxes each year (for companies that are still burning money). If you have less than $5M in revenue go ask your accountant about it.
QSBS: Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) is a huge tax incentive for shareholders of small businesses. Investors holding QSBS for more than five years may be eligible to exclude up to 100% of capital gains upon sale, capped at the greater of $10 million or 10 times the investor's basis in the stock. If your company has <$50M in assets then talk to your lawyers/accountants!

The fines for failing to meet reporting deadlines can be VERY expensive so make sure your company is taking care of the compliance stuff!

Form 1099: If you paid any independent contractors, freelancers, etc. in 2024 then you need to submit 1099s by January 31, 2025. Make you have W-9s from all vendors now so you can meet the deadline.
Form 3921: If any employees exercised an incentive stock option (ISO) in 2024 then this is due by January 31, 2025. It’s an information return that you have to file with the IRS and the employee for their taxes.
BOI Reporting: This beneficial ownership information (BOI) is a new reporting requirement that has big fines if not filed on time. However, a federal court has temporarily halted enforcement, but keep an eye on this to make sure you stay in compliance.
W-2 Reporting: Make sure your payroll team is ready to submit W-2s. This impacts your whole company so make sure to get it right.

Delaware (or whatever other state) franchise tax: Make sure you file and pay timely. If you are large then you probably should be paying this quarterly to avoid fines.
Section 174: Make sure you discuss section 174 with your tax folks when you file taxes because it could have a big impact on your tax bill. Section 174 requires R&D costs to be expensed over 5 or 15 years for tax purposes.
Sales & International Tax: Stop ignoring sales and other indirect tax requirements. Get this set up properly asap so you don’t have a big liability later. Failure to follow the rules can (and will) really hurt you if you want to get acquired (or go public) in 2025.

Check out my the Annual Planning webinar recording. Also, tell your accounting team to check out my sample chart of accounts and departments. It will make accounting and forecasting much better.
Sign up for the OnlyCFO webinar series! Our next webinar is on January 8th and we are covering the Metrics That Matter for 2025
Check out OnlyExperts to find offshore accounting resources. They have some amazing talent for 20% the cost of a U.S. hire