For e-commerce, year-end lands at the worst possible moment: your biggest sales weeks and your accounting deadlines collide. The sellers who cruise through January follow the same pattern — they use October and November to prepare. Here's the checklist.
October–November: get current
- Catch up any backlog now — cleanup capacity (yours or a firm's) evaporates in January. See the catch-up playbook.
- Reconcile all accounts through last month: banks, cards, processors, marketplace settlements.
- Collect W-9s from US contractors — freelancers, VAs, agencies, prep centers — while they still answer email. You'll need them for 1099s.
- Review your sales-by-state for nexus thresholds crossed during the year.
December: close the year
- Count inventory at December 31 (or as close as operations allow) — the number that anchors your COGS and margin for the whole year.
- Post final settlements: December sales paid out in January belong in December on accrual books; reserve balances at year-end are assets, not losses.
- Sweep for deductions: home office, software subscriptions, mileage, fees buried in settlements — deductions your books didn't capture are cash donated to the IRS.
January: file and hand off
- 1099-NECs are due January 31 — to contractors and the IRS. Penalties scale per form and per month late.
- Deliver a tax-ready package to your CPA: closed P&L and balance sheet, reconciliation reports, inventory valuation, loan statements, and notes on anything unusual. A CPA who receives this in January instead of a shoebox in March files earlier, asks fewer billable questions, and finds more savings.
The meta-tip: everything on this list is trivial if monthly books exist and brutal if they don't. The best year-end strategy is a monthly close — by the 10th, every month, all year.