As the calendar year draws to a close, now is the perfect time for event organizers to reflect, review, and prepare for the upcoming year. While it’s tempting to dive headfirst into planning your next big event, taking the time to assess and organize your business operations now can set you up for long-term success. Here's a comprehensive checklist to guide you through the year-end process:
1. Run Financial Reports
Start by pulling detailed transaction reports for the year. These reports should include:
Revenue Reports
Summarize your income from ticket sales, sponsorships, merchandise, and other revenue streams.
By consolidating this data, you can identify your most profitable events and areas where you may have overspent. This information will also be crucial for tax preparation and strategic planning.
If you’ve been using Passage as your ticketing provider, you have easy access to powerful reporting for just about any data points you need. The transactions report is the place to check financial numbers (i.e. deposits, refunds, taxes, fees) for your account. The boxes at the top of the report show total number of transactions, total transaction amount (includes price, fees, taxes, and discounts), total deposits made to your account, total tax (if set up on your venue), total processing and service fees, and total dollar amount of refunds issued.
When you load the transactions report, it will initially show the numbers for the past 365 days. You can use the filters to update the date range, or focus on sales for only a specific event, payment type, or sales processed by a specific cashier account among many other filters.
Expense Reports
Make a detailed list of all your costs throughout the year, including operating activities, major purchases, as well as any debt obligations like loan payments. Operating expenses cover things like staffing costs (payroll), rent and utilities, and costs of goods sold. Don’t forget about marketing expenses and vendor payments, too. Major purchases might be assets you’ve acquired throughout the year, like new equipment.
Compare those with your revenues to get your total income and cash flow for the year. You might also want to analyze your cash flow trends throughout the year: were there certain months where you were higher on expenses than revenues? Understanding these trends can help you better plan for the future so you don’t run into any fund shortfalls.
2. Analyze Revenue and Expenses
Once you have your financial reports, start evaluating the results. Most business owners have a general sense for how the year went financially, but it’s worth doing a deep dive now because you might be surprised by your performance in some areas. For example, you may already know you had a great year in terms of sales, but did your costs increase at the same rate? Here are a few areas you should focus on:
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Profitability Analysis: Which events or activities generated the highest returns? Are there opportunities to replicate or expand these?
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Expense Control: Were there any unexpected or unusually high costs? What can you do to manage these better next year?
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Budget Accuracy: Compare actual expenses to your budget. This will help refine your budgeting process for future events.
Understanding these metrics will give you a clearer picture of your financial health and highlight opportunities for growth.
3. Confirm Vendor Information
If you worked with vendors throughout the year, now is the time to verify their contact details and ensure all payments have been accounted for. This step is particularly important for tax compliance:
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Form 1099-MISC (U.S. only): If you paid any vendor $600 or more, you’ll likely need to send them a 1099 form. Double-check the accuracy of their names, addresses, and taxpayer identification numbers (TINs) to avoid delays or errors.
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Reconcile Payments: Ensure all outstanding invoices are resolved and your records align with the vendors' records.
4. Verify Payroll Information
Payroll accuracy is critical at year-end. If you employed any full-time, part-time, or seasonal staff this year, review your records to make sure everything looks accurate. This gives you time to correct any minor errors or make updates, such as an employee’s address, for example.
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Employee Records: Confirm that all employee names, addresses, and Social Security numbers are up to date.
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Year-End Tax Forms: Prepare W-2 forms for employees and ensure they’ll be distributed by the required deadline. Independent contractors will require 1099 forms.
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Bonuses and Adjustments: If you’re awarding year-end bonuses or making payroll corrections, make these updates before the final payroll run of the year.
5. Reflect and Plan
Once you’ve finished your administrative tasks, take some time to reflect on the year and decide what changes or improvements you’d like to make in the new year. Not sure where to start? Here are a few areas where you can start:
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Team Performance: Celebrate successes and identify areas for improvement. This could mean offering promotions to top-performing employees, identifying areas where staff may need additional training, open positions that need to be filled, or even reductions in staff.
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Client Feedback: Review any surveys or feedback you received from event attendees and ticket purchasers. Use this input to make improvements where it makes sense for your events.
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Strategic Goals: Set clear, measurable objectives for the coming year. Once your goals are solidified, be sure to share these with your team so everyone is on the same page. You may also want to complete additional training with your staff to help them reach these goals, or create an incentive program to motivate them.
6. Organize Your Records
Finally, make sure all documents are neatly organized and labeled before you store them away. Your future self will thank you: it will be so much easier to find the information you need later.
Whether you’re storing digital or hard copies, keep these documents categorized and clearly marked:
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Financial statements, receipts, and tax documents.
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Contracts and agreements with vendors, clients, and venues.
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Employee and contractor records.
Final Thoughts
Year-end reporting can be overwhelming, but it’s a critical step to close out the year with confidence and clarity. Not only will you have a solid foundation for tax season, but you’ll also gain valuable insights to shape your event business strategy moving forward. Cheers to a successful year ahead!
Need help with your year-end reporting? We’ve got your back! Schedule a call with our support team and we’ll walk you through the process.
