The checklist is about the records, not about learning entries
Year-end advice often turns into a second job: recode this, accrue that, build a spreadsheet of receipts. If you are the owner, your job is to know what existed. The cleanup is the job of making the books match it. Book cleanups are how that gets done for you, with a licensed CPA reviewing the package before it goes to your preparer.
Use this list to see whether the year is ready to close, and to see what to send. You do not have to post the entries yourself.
Accounts and statements
List every account that touched the business this year. Checking, savings, cards, merchant accounts, loans, and lines of credit. Include the account you meant to close and did not.
For each one, see whether you have the statements through the date you care about. A missing month is a line on the list, not something to estimate. If the bank can still produce it, order it. If the bank cannot, the cleanup should say the month is unsupported.
Compare the year-end cash in the books to the bank on that date. If they do not match and nobody can list the outstanding items, the year is not ready. That single check is enough to justify a diagnostic.
Loans, assets, and personal spending
List what you borrowed and what you paid off. The books should show the same loans. A deposit from a lender that was recorded as sales will overstate the year. You know if you signed a note. Check that the books know it too.
List the equipment or vehicles you bought or sold. If the books still show an asset you no longer have, or never showed one you paid cash for, say so. You are not preparing a depreciation schedule. You are making sure the file is not silent about a purchase.
Skim the card for personal charges and transfers to yourself. They should not be buried in operating costs. You do not need the perfect category. You need them visible so the cleanup can move them.
What you send, and what you get back
Send the list, the statements, and the file you have. The diagnostic is $499. It is read-only. You receive findings with dollar amounts and a fixed quote to fix what those findings name. The $499 credits toward the cleanup if you approve the quote in writing.
What comes back after you approve it is a year that ties where the statements exist, with the open items written down, reviewed by a licensed CPA. It is not a tax return. Your preparer still files. We do not contact the IRS.
If you want to see what a finished package looks like before you send anything, the sample deliverables are a sample, with a fictitious business. Use them for shape. Do not treat the sample figures as a benchmark for your year.
A short year is still this list
Being a month behind does not make the cash check optional. A personal card or a loan deposit hides in an ordinary month as easily as in a messy year. If more than one year is open, run the same list for each year, and let the diagnostic say which years the statements support. Do not ask the cleanup to invent a month the bank cannot produce.
After the year is true
If this year failed the cash test, do not assume next year will keep itself. Once the cleanup is done, monthly bookkeeping is the separate offer that keeps a current file current. One year behind is what happens when the year-end list gets skipped and the next year starts on top of a wrong balance.
Do the list now if you can still gather the statements. If the list shows the year already ties, you may only need your preparer. If it shows a gap, start with a cleanup and read the diagnostic before you promise anyone the books are done.