Hand your books to your accountant

At year-end, package everything your accountant needs in one file:

1. Go to Ledger › Reports, pick Accountant on the group row, then open the Year-End Pack tab beneath it.
2. Set the Fiscal year-end date (it defaults to last December 31).
3. Click Download handover pack (.zip).

The ZIP holds the trial balance, general-ledger detail, and all three primary statements (profit & loss, balance sheet, cash flow), plus GST/HST worksheets, reconciliations and a working_papers folder, all as CSVs, along with every bill and invoice PDF for the year and a cover sheet. It's built to be read by a person, so it works no matter what software your accountant uses.

The profit & loss carries your book's declared basis. The cash flow statement is always the indirect method, so it has no basis label: its whole job is to reconcile accrual profit to the cash that actually moved.

When they send back adjusting entries, the Upload adjusting entries panel on the same tab brings them in. This is a handover, not a filing: your accountant still prepares and files the return.

The working papers

Statements say what the balances are. The working_papers folder says what is behind them, which is what an accountant asks for next.

Open working_papers/index.csv first. It is your trial balance with one extra column: the file in the pack that lists what makes up each account. Every listing adds up to the trial-balance line it supports, to the cent.

What is in there:

• bank_accounts.csv every bank, card and prepaid balance on its own line, with the date it was last reconciled and what was still outstanding then
• ar_open_items.csv and ap_open_items.csv what was still owed at the year end, one row per invoice or bill (netted, so anything settled in full is gone), listed under the customer or supplier and with an aging column
• sales_tax_control.csv each tax account from opening to closing, showing what moved it
• inventory.csv the accounts you have flagged as stock, and the counts you posted
• customer_credits.csv and vendor_credits.csv credits still owed either way
• capital_additions.csv what was added to your asset accounts in the year
• balance_sheet_accounts.csv everything else on the balance sheet: prepayments, accruals, deposits, loans, and any account your accountant imported at their own numbering

Three things the listings say about themselves, because they are easy to misread:

• The receivables and payables listings are the general ledger position at your year end. The aging reports in the app are a live view, so an invoice paid in January has already left them while the ledger still showed it owing on 31 December. Both are right; they answer different questions.
• The bank listing's reconciliation figures are frozen at each reconciliation's own date, which is usually earlier than your year end. The balance beside them is the ledger at the year end.
• capital_additions.csv is a listing, not a schedule. TALISK_HQ does not decide which of your asset accounts hold depreciable property and computes no capital cost allowance. That stays with your accountant, which is why the file names every account and every document behind each addition.

What to tell your accountant about sales tax

The handover cover sheet says this too, but it is the one thing worth repeating, because it differs from QuickBooks and getting it wrong costs money.

Meals input tax credits are already restricted to 50%. TALISK_HQ applies the ITA s.67.1 / ETA s.236 limit when each bill or charge is recorded, so the ITC figure on the GST worksheet and on account 1110 is already net of it. In QuickBooks the usual practice is the opposite: claim the full credit through the year and add back 50% at year end. An accountant working from that habit will restrict your meals credits twice.

Two things they should also know:

• The expense side is not restricted. Account 5800 carries the full cost of each meal. The 50% income-tax deduction limit has not been applied and is still theirs to make.
• PST is inside the expense, not a separate line, because it is not recoverable.

When you last counted stock

If your books track cost of goods, the cover sheet also carries the date you last physically counted stock, which is a question your accountant asks anyway. Record it in Ledger › Setup before you build the pack. TALISK_HQ books cost as stock sells and never counts your shelves, so any difference between the ledger and a real count is a year-end adjustment for them to make.