What your accountant will ask for in January

“Send your books” is not one file. Here is the pack Nigerian SMEs should have ready — so January is a handoff, not a scavenger hunt.

  • January should be assembly, not archaeology.
  • Close each month: bank matched, receipts filed, invoices sequential.
  • Hand your accountant exports — not forty WhatsApp attachments.

December is loud. January is when your accountant goes quiet and serious. “Please send full year records.” You have bank PDFs in Downloads, payslips in email, VAT receipts on someone’s phone, and a folder called `FINAL_v3_REAL.xlsx` that is neither final nor real.

Accountants do not charge for typing. They charge for finding.

Every firm during filing season

The pack — twelve months, one place

If you reconcile monthly, January is assembly. If you did not, January is archaeology. Build toward this list every month so the year-end zip takes an hour, not three weeks.

  • Bank statements and reconciliations for every business account
  • Sales invoice register — numbers, dates, customers, VAT
  • Purchase invoices and expense log with categories
  • Payroll: monthly schedules, payslips, PAYE and pension payment receipts
  • VAT returns filed and payment confirmations
  • Fixed asset list (equipment, vehicles) with purchase dates
  • Loan and director drawing schedule if applicable

Categorised transactions beat a raw bank dump.

Month-by-month beats hero mode

  1. Close each month: bank matched, unexplained lines cleared
  2. File payment receipts when you pay — not in March
  3. Keep invoice numbers sequential; note credit notes
  4. Quarterly: sanity-check receivables and payables aging
  5. December: run final payroll, accrue anything outstanding
  6. First week of January: export packs; accountant gets a link, not 40 attachments

Finance exports from one workspace — not stitched from five tools.

Cash, receivables, and open items visible before you export.

What good looks like to your accountant

They want consistency: same categories all year, names that match bank narratives, VAT that ties to invoices. You do not need perfection. You need a story that reconciles — and software that kept the story while you ran the business.

Build the pack as you go — Reconcile monthly · export when January comes