Year-End Checklist: Fill & Download for Free

Some sources of stress:Much of the work is according to externally set deadlines that are often non-negotiable. Example: A few years ago, I was involved in a major corporate acquisition that had to be completed by year end. The final conference call to be sure all checklist items were completed was on December 31. One aspect of the deal was my responsibility. I needed an official assurance on an issue that I had not yet received. It was not until ten minutes before the call started that I finally got the needed confirmation. This was a wee bit stressful.Much of the work requires rapid reaction and decision-making. How do I answer the judge? How do I respond to this IRS question? Should I object or let this evidence in?Clients can often present as emotional and with urgent demands.Unreliable clients may pose risks of payment.Schedules are easily disrupted and at times can cause havoc to personal time, vacations, and other life balance activities.Some work is just simply doggone difficult. Ever try to figure out whether a protective QEF election is needed for an NCFC that might face problems with new tests of PFIC status under TCJA?Some opposing lawyers — and sometimes even those on your side — can prove to be very problematic personalities.

I presume you are trying to get your accounting records in order for a year end close.In accounting terms, in principle, if you beat up your balance sheet, income will fall out. That means if your balance sheet is correct, your income statement (in terms of net income) will be correct.This means:reconciling all of your bank accountsperforming a physical count of goods on handensuring sales cutoffs and inventory receiving is accurate (i.e. tracing the last transactions of the year (last couple of day's of activity) into your general ledger),ensuring all invoices for services rendered and goods received prior to year end have been recordedexamining accruals and making estimates for anticipated expenses yet to be invoicedensuring all fixed assets on your sub ledger are still in existence and recording disposition entries for anything you cannot findexamining obsolete goods and recording reserves for the difference between cost and market valueshaving supporting, defendable documentation for each and every balance sheet account and having your senior accounting official (CFO/Controller) sign off on themexamining accounts receivable and assessing the probability of collection, making entries for reserves for bad debtssearch for unrecorded liabilities by examining your disbursements subsequent to year and and looking at the invoice dates and the periods in which expenses were recordedsending a memo to all department heads to have them approve and submit invoices by a reasonable cutoff datesend out 1099s (to vendors) and W-2s (to employees)year end payroll adjustmentsThe above conceptually describes the basics and should not be construed as an all-inclusive checklist, which I would probably write 100 more things, if I had the time.

Year end always brings a mix of emotions for market participants. As the saying goes, you’re only as good as your last trade. So as an investor, year end is a milestone of sorts, providing a time stamp to benchmark your performance against all of your peers doing the same thing you are. If you’ve been sitting on your hands all year, or have been underperforming the market, it’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to hit a home run in the eleventh hour to make up for it. If you’ve been successful as an investor, you probably will have shut down most of your risk right now and are off in some expensive foreign country skiing and enjoying the holidays.This year I’ve ended up somewhere in the middle. It’s been a tough year, make no mistake. But I’m also not the type of person to say “I can’t wait till this year is over” because it’s not like once the year is done you stop trading. Investing is a full time gig, and it doesn’t matter if it’s December 31st or January 1st, I simply love the markets and looking at money making opportunities year round. So year end is just a formality to me really. It doesn’t help that it’s 75 degrees and sunny in Hong Kong right now. It really does not feel like Christmas...I usually do a year end review type piece outlining all the outlandish things that happened in the markets each month and they follow that up by trying to somehow postulate how I can best position myself for the coming year. I could spend the rest of this piece talking about the Fed’s most recent dovish hike or the trade wars with China after the Huawei debacle or about how we are on the brink of a recession or maybe about the Uber vs. Lyft race to IPO and how that forebodes a massive private equity bubble...But I’m not going to do that this time around. Call me lazy, or exhausted or maybe simply outright clueless...whatever it may be, this year I’m just not feeling it. Not only do I genuinely not know what to make of 2019, I’ve also come to an almost esoteric appreciation of the fact that my view doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. The only thing I have control over is how I manage my risk.As far as markets go, if I could leave you with one “gem” for 2018, here it is. Take some time to watch this. I’ve watched it twice now already, and it will without a doubt be the best and most insightful 1 hour use of your time over the remainder of the holiday season.The CliffNotes version of this gem of an interview is the simple fact that one of the greatest money managers of our generation Stanley Druckenmiller, who has an unprecedented track record of earning a 30% annual return over 30 years with no single money-losing year on record (Buffett has made 19% over 50 years and Klarman is at 20% over 34), has no f-ing idea what to make of the markets. So neither should you or I. This is something to take comfort in.All you need to know is that we are in a bear market and in bear markets, all news is bad news.