Advice for the accounting and tax closing
With the arrival of the month of December, the end of the year, we also enter one review period of our projects: we evaluate the evolution of the year, the goals achieved, the state of mind in which the collective is, the new ideas to implement next year and also, the review of the numbers.
The accounting and tax closing it is a procedure that is carried out in all companies, whatever their legal form. It’s about review the accounts of the whole year and make sure that all the documentation and coding is up to date in order to present all the information that the public administration requires of us to fulfill our obligations as an economic operator.
We wanted to collect some tips that can help you sift through all those numbers among all members of the cooperative. It is important that all partners have access to this information and that it is understood to ensure that decisions made going forward are well-founded and clear to all.
1. Make a pre-closure during the third quarter. This allows us to anticipate the final result before the end of the year and thus make some strategic decisions that can help improve the result. The pre-closing also allows us to detect in advance possible inconsistencies and non-compliance with payments or other obligations and prepare all the necessary documentation.
2. Analyze the financial situation among allif necessary with the help of an expert. make one balance sheet shows us a still image of the project at the time of closing. This way we can know if there are any pending payments and the planned and executed budget items. In addition, it allows us to clarify the liquidity we have and thus we can predict if there is a need for external financing.
3. Share doubts and worries: it is normal for some people to feel disoriented when talking about project accounting, corporate aspects and other technical terms when they are not used to it or do not have basic knowledge in this matter. That’s why at Coòpolis we insist so much on the need that all people partners carry out some very basic training on these aspects to be able to feel safe when analyzing the economic aspects of the project and to be able to express their opinion.
4. Have reliable professionals. Work cooperatives have some fiscal and corporate particularities that they do not share with other types of legal forms. It is important that the accounting management professionals in whom we entrust our procedures have the appropriate knowledge and training to do so, to avoid mistakes and to give better advice on the decisions to be made. In the XAC, the network of Ateneus Cooperatius de Catalunya, intense work was done to agree and offer the knowledge that these professionals had to accredit in order to accompany cooperatives in an appropriate way. These agencies are awarded the Seal ‘Here we advise the ESS’which must be renewed annually.
