Year-end closing checklist: making the 2025 bookkeeping balance

What belongs on a year-end closing checklist?

A year-end closing checklist makes sure every item on the balance sheet at 31 December is right before you export the trial balance. You reconcile bank and cash to the statements, agree receivables and payables, count the inventory, book depreciation and accruals, reconcile VAT and payroll taxes to the returns and clear the suspense accounts.

• Aim: a trial balance in which every balance can be explained with a document from outside the bookkeeping, such as a statement, return, count or contract.
• Basis: the board keeps records from which the rights and obligations are apparent at all times, and keeps them for seven years (art. 2:10(1) and (3) DCC).

What do you need?

• Bank statements and balance overviews at 31 December 2025, including savings accounts, credit cards and payment service providers.
• Open-items lists of receivables and payables at 31 December 2025.
• An inventory count or a statement of work in progress at 31 December 2025.
• The fixed asset register with investments, sales and scrapped assets in 2025.
• The VAT returns and payroll tax returns filed for 2025.
• Loan agreements with repayment schedules and the bank's interest statements.
• The provisional corporate income tax assessments for 2025.
• The invoices that arrive in January and February 2026 but relate to 2025.

The checklist in ten steps

1. Fix the closing date and the order
2. Reconcile bank, cash and payment accounts
3. Agree receivables and assess collectability
4. Count the inventory and value work in progress
5. Update fixed assets and depreciation
6. Book the accruals
7. Reconcile VAT to the returns
8. Reconcile payroll taxes and salaries
9. Check current account, loans and equity
10. Clear suspense accounts, assess post balance sheet events and export

Step 1. Fix the closing date and the order

Agree until when entries are still booked in 2025 and who makes the closing entries. Movements after 31 December belong in 2026, even if the invoice concerns December but is only paid in January; you process those through the accruals. Work through the steps below in this order: first what can be proven with external documents, then the estimates.

Why: Income and expenses belong in the year to which they relate, regardless of the moment of payment.

art. 2:362(5) DCCart. 2:10(1) DCC

Note: Entries that are still made in 2025 after the export of the trial balance make the annual accounts and the bookkeeping unequal. Lock the period as soon as you are done.

Step 2. Reconcile bank, cash and payment accounts

For each bank account, compare the balance in the ledger with the statement at 31 December 2025. Do the same for savings accounts, credit cards, the cash (based on a count) and the clearing accounts of payment service providers and marketplaces. A difference is a missing or duplicate entry, or an amount in transit; the latter you explain with the movement in January.

Why: Cash and cash equivalents are the easiest balance sheet item to prove. If this is not right, the rest is not right either.

art. 2:10(1) DCC

Note: A negative cash balance cannot exist; it points to missing deposits or to private expenses booked through the cash.

Step 3. Agree receivables and assess collectability

The open-items list must equal the receivables balance in the ledger. Go through the old items: what was paid after the balance sheet date, what is disputed, what is probably uncollectible? Form a provision for the risk. Book turnover that was earned in 2025 but is invoiced in 2026 as turnover still to be invoiced.

Why: The law asks for prudence. Foreseeable losses that originate before the end of the financial year and become known before preparation may be taken into account; a debtor who could not pay on the balance sheet date is therefore not valued at the full amount.

art. 2:384(2) DCCart. 2:362(5) DCC

Note: A credit note made in 2026 for turnover from 2025 reduces the turnover and the receivable of 2025.

Step 4. Count the inventory and value work in progress

Count the inventory on or as close as possible to 31 December and roll movements between the count and the balance sheet date back. Value at acquisition price or lower net realisable value, and write down obsolete items. For projects in progress, include the costs incurred and the realised part of the profit, less invoiced instalments and expected losses.

Why: Inventory and work in progress affect the result directly: every euro too many is a euro too much profit.

art. 2:384(1) and (2) DCC

Note: A count without date and signature can hardly be supported afterwards. Keep the count sheets with the records.

Step 5. Update fixed assets and depreciation

Capitalise the investments of 2025, book the depreciation for 2025, write off sold and scrapped assets and process the gain or loss on disposal. Check that the asset register agrees with the ledger. With the depreciation calculator you recalculate straight-line depreciation per year.

Why: Fixed assets are on the balance sheet at acquisition price less depreciation; a forgotten depreciation makes both the balance sheet and the result too high.

art. 2:384(1) DCC

Note: A laptop bought in December but paid in January does belong on the balance sheet in 2025, with a payable opposite it.

Step 6. Book the accruals

Book prepaid costs (insurance, annual subscriptions, rent for January) as prepayments. Book costs still to be paid (energy, interest, the costs of the annual accounts) and purchase invoices still to be received as accruals. Reserve holiday pay, untaken holiday days and promised bonuses.

Why: Without these items the result comes out too high or too low, depending on coincidental payment dates.

art. 2:362(5) DCCart. 2:395a(3) DCC

Note: A micro entity may omit accruals for other operating expenses, but must state that at the bottom of the balance sheet. For turnover, personnel costs and interest that exemption does not apply.

Step 7. Reconcile VAT to the returns

Compare the turnover per rate and the input VAT in the ledger with the VAT returns filed for 2025. The balance of the VAT account must equal what you still have to pay or receive for the last period. Explain every difference.

Why: An error of € 1.000 VAT or less you correct in the next return. If it is more, you must file a supplementary return as soon as possible and within eight weeks after discovery at the latest.

Belastingdienst: correcting a VAT return

Note: A credit note or a late purchase invoice after the last return shifts the reconciliation. Record for each difference where it comes from.

Support: If you keep the bookkeeping in Jaarrekening.io, the app prepares the VAT return, the ICP statement and the supplementary return as an SBR message to download; you file it yourself via Digipoort or Mijn Belastingdienst Zakelijk.

Step 8. Reconcile payroll taxes and salaries

Add up the payroll tax returns for 2025 and compare them with the payroll journal entries in the ledger. The payroll tax to be paid for December is on the balance sheet as a liability, as are pension premiums still to be paid. Check the DGA's salary. The customary salary in 2025 is in principle the highest of € 56.000, the salary from the most comparable employment and the highest salary of an employee at the BV or an affiliated company. A lower salary is possible if you make that plausible.

Why: Personnel costs are often the largest cost item; a difference from the returns is quickly noticed by the Belastingdienst.

Belastingdienst: salary and substantial interest

Note: A DGA salary below the standard without support can lead to a correction in the payroll taxes. For 2026 the standard amount is € 58.000.

Step 9. Check current account, loans and equity

Agree the current account with the DGA and book the interest. Add up the debts of the DGA and their tax partner to their own BVs, except qualifying owner-occupied home debts; debts of related persons, such as children, count as well. Compare the position at 31 December with their applicable threshold: at least € 500.000, possibly higher because of earlier taxed excessive borrowing. Only the excess is taxed in box 2. Split loans into the part you repay in 2026 and the part after that. Check that the appropriation of the 2024 result has been booked as adopted and that every dividend of 2025 has a resolution and a recorded distribution test.

Why: These items affect the DGA personally and are tax-sensitive. The annual accounts must show them correctly and completely.

art. 2:375(2) and (6) DCCart. 2:216(2) DCC

Note: For excessive borrowing the position at 31 December counts. Repaying in January 2026 does not change the test for 2025.

Step 10. Clear suspense accounts, assess post balance sheet events and export

Cross-postings, query items, payment differences and opening balance differences are at zero. Calculate and book the corporate income tax for 2025, less the provisional assessments. Assess what happened after 31 December: a debtor who goes bankrupt in February provides information about the situation on the balance sheet date. Then lock the period and export the trial balance following the trial balance guide.

Why: Events after the balance sheet date that give more clarity about the position on the balance sheet date you process in the figures; other important events you explain.

art. 2:362(6) DCCart. 2:380a DCC

Note: Writing a query item off to general costs solves nothing; it moves the problem to the result.

Support: Jaarrekening.io reads the closed trial balance as an XAF audit file or as an Excel or CSV file; if you keep the bookkeeping in the app, you take over the trial balance without an export.

Example: the VAT reconciliation

A BV compares its turnover at 21% in the ledger with the turnover declared for 2025.

The VAT amount to be corrected is € 1.000 or less. The BV therefore processes it in its next VAT return. Had it been more than € 1.000, a supplementary return would have been mandatory, as soon as possible and within eight weeks after discovery.

The annual accounts show the turnover of € 412.300 and a VAT liability including the € 525. Whoever does not sort out the difference sees it return later as a question from the Belastingdienst.

Schedule of the year-end closing (financial year 2025)

When do you bring in an accountant or adviser?

Bring in an accountant or tax adviser if you doubt the valuation of work in progress, provisions for warranties or reorganisation, the tax treatment of the current account with the DGA, or a fiscal unity. A year-end closing that you prepared yourself makes that help more targeted.

Sources

• Art. 2:10 DCC (wetten.overheid.nl): record-keeping obligation and seven-year retention period
• Art. 2:362 DCC (wetten.overheid.nl): attribution of income and expenses, events after the balance sheet date
• Art. 2:395a DCC (wetten.overheid.nl): micro: exemption for accruals of other operating expenses
• Art. 2:375 DCC (wetten.overheid.nl): terms of debts and repayments in the following year
• Belastingdienst: Correcting a VAT return: up to € 1.000 in the next return, above that a supplementary return within 8 weeks
• Belastingdienst: Salary and substantial interest: customary salary: highest of the standard amount (€ 56.000 in 2025, € 58.000 in 2026), the most comparable salary and the salary of the highest-paid employee; lower if you make that plausible
• Belastingdienst: Excessive borrowing from a BV restricted: owner-occupied home debts do not count; debts of tax partner and related persons do; threshold at least € 500.000, higher after earlier taxed excessive borrowing; reference date 31 December

All sources consulted on 5 October 2026. Statutory texts according to Book 2 of the Dutch Civil Code as in force from 1 July 2026.

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