What Should I Review Before My Corporate Year-End?

A corporation's year-end is a deadline dressed as a date. Compensation choices, purchases, bonuses, dividends between companies, and balance cleanups all divide into 'before' and 'after' — and several of the best tools expire at midnight on the last day.

The discipline is a structured review, sixty to ninety days out, with your accountant: where profit is landing, what the owner needs, and which levers are worth pulling while they still move this year's numbers.

The recurring checklist starts with compensation: the salary–dividend mix for the year (a declared bonus is deductible now and taxable to you when paid, if paid within 179 days of year-end — the classic deferral); dividends needed to clean up shareholder loan balances before their inclusion deadlines; and family compensation squared against the reasonableness and TOSI tests while the documentation is still contemporaneous. Then the balance sheet hygiene: shareholder accounts reconciled, inter-company balances papered, and the capital dividend account brought current if a tax-free capital dividend is available to pay.

Then the timing levers on the business itself: capital purchases you intend anyway — equipment acquired and available for use before year-end starts its capital cost allowance a year earlier; genuinely uncollectible receivables written off while they can offset this year's income; obsolete inventory written down; and discretionary expenses (repairs, professional fees) landed on the intended side of the line. Finish by looking forward: next year's instalment schedule set against expected profit, the passive-income position checked against the small business deduction thresholds, and any structural moves — a holding company, a purification step, a freeze conversation — scheduled while there is a full year to execute them. An hour of this in October is worth more than a day of it in February.