Close your books in QuickBooks Online (2024)

Closing your books ensures everything stays the way you want it to, and it also prevents any accidental changes that could affect your financial reports.

This article will explain the following steps involved in closing your books:

  1. Review your accounts
  2. Close your books
  3. Next Steps (reviewing your closed books, and what to expect afterwards)

Step 1: Review your accounts

  1. Sign in to QuickBooks Online as a primary or company admin.
  2. Review your accounts and make sure everything looks good.
  3. Enter any outstandinginvoices, expenses, and payments.
  4. Reconcile your accounts up to your closing date.
  5. Review your inventory quantities.

Step 2: Close your books

Close your books in QuickBooks Online (1)

  1. Go to Settings ⚙ and then select Accounts and settings.
  2. Select the Advanced tab.
  3. Select Edit ✎ in the Accounting section.
  4. Turn on the Close the books switch.
  5. Enter a closing date. Give yourself a comfortable deadline. You shouldn't need to edit any transactions before this date. Your new bookkeeping work will start after this point.
  6. Select the Allow changes after viewing a warning and entering a password option from the drop-down menu if you want to require a password before editing your closed books.
  7. Select Save and then Done.

Next steps

Review your closed books

Get ready for year-end and check out our year-end guide and checklist in QuickBooks Online. If you're an accountant or bookkeeper, follow this guide and checklist.

What changes after year-end close

When a new financial year starts, QuickBooks Online automatically adds the net income from the previous financial year to your Balance Sheet as Retained Earnings. Your Retained Earnings shows the total of your company's income and expenses from all previous years. To learn more, see how to view Retained Earnings account details. Note that the Retained Earnings account is not the same as the Retained Earnings calculation that shows as a line item on the Balance Sheet.

Close your books in QuickBooks Online (2024)

FAQs

Does QuickBooks automatically close the books? ›

For proper account management, it is important to close entries in QuickBooks at the end of your Fiscal year. In QuickBooks, there is no fixed closing done in the month or year-end.

What is the difference between closing the books and making closing entries in QuickBooks? ›

Closing entries are made after you record all adjusting entries. Once the books are closed, you aren't supposed to enter any entry for that fiscal year. Some programs prohibit you from making any entry even if that entry corrects or makes your books more accurate.

Should you close the books in QuickBooks Online? ›

Closing your books ensures everything stays the way you want it to, and it also prevents any accidental changes that could affect your financial reports. This article will explain the following steps involved in closing your books: Review your accounts.

What should you do before closing the books in QuickBooks Online? ›

Step 1: Review your accounts
  1. Sign in to QuickBooks Online as a primary or company admin.
  2. Review your accounts and make sure everything looks good.
  3. Enter any outstanding invoices, expenses, and payments.
  4. Reconcile your accounts up to your closing date.
  5. Review your inventory quantities.
Jan 26, 2024

How do I close entries in QuickBooks? ›

To do this, go to the "File" menu and select "Utilities." Then, select "Verify Data." QuickBooks will perform a check to make sure that your data is correct and that all of your accounts are balanced. If everything checks out, you'll be prompted to "Finalize Data." Click on this option to complete the closing process.

What is the book closure process? ›

Business owners can close their books by zeroing out their income and expense accounts and then plugging net profit (or loss) into the balance sheet. Some accounting software automatically closes your income and expense accounts at year-end before adding your net profit (or loss) to your retained earnings account.

What does it mean to close the books in accounting? ›

Closing the books refers to the process of finalizing the financial records for a specific accounting period, such as a month, quarter, or year.

How do I close my monthly books? ›

Process map for closing the books in accounting
  1. Step 1: Complete data entry into the accounting system. ...
  2. Step 2: Reconcile cash, bank, and other accounts. ...
  3. Step 3: Adjust depreciation. ...
  4. Step 4: Record all accrued expenses. ...
  5. Step 5: Prepare a trial balance. ...
  6. Step 6: Generate financial statements. ...
  7. Step 7: Close temporary accounts.
Mar 7, 2023

What are the four necessary closing entries? ›

The four closing entries are, generally speaking, revenue accounts to income summary, expense accounts to income summary, income summary to retained earnings, and dividend accounts to retained earnings.

What are the three closing entries in accounting? ›

Only revenue, expense, and dividend accounts are closed—not asset, liability, Common Stock, or Retained Earnings accounts. The four basic steps in the closing process are: Closing the revenue accounts—transferring the credit balances in the revenue accounts to a clearing account called Income Summary.

How do I close a journal entry in QuickBooks Online? ›

Delete a journal entry
  1. Select Settings. and then Chart of accounts (Take me there).
  2. Find the account you created the journal entry for. Then select View register.
  3. Find the journal entry in the account register. ...
  4. Select the journal entry to expand the view.
  5. Select Delete.
  6. Select Yes to confirm.
Jan 31, 2024

How do I close QuickBooks without saving? ›

Under the Save for later drop-down arrow, choose Close without saving. This removes any selection changes you made during the current session. Confirm that you want to close without saving.

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