Year-end closing for your B&B: the checklist before 31 December

Short answer: year-end closing for your B&B is not accounting work, it is tidying up before your accountant starts. In December, check six things: open balances, pro formas that never became invoices, deposits for stays next year, gift vouchers sold but not yet used, your tourist tax and your monthly statistics filings. One hour in December saves days of back-and-forth emails in January.

Most owners see New Year from the kitchen: who is staying on New Year's Eve, how many breakfasts on 1 January. The paperwork only arrives in January, when the accountant asks for "everything from last year". Then the search begins: which transfer belongs to which guest, why is that invoice still open, and what about the guest who paid in November for a weekend in February?

Here are the six points, in the order that works best.

1. Open balances: what is still open, and why?

Start with invoices that still have money outstanding. Often nothing is wrong: the guest paid cash at checkout and you did not record it, or a transfer came in with a different reference. Sometimes something is wrong, and you want to know now, not in March.

Go through each open invoice and put it in one of three buckets:

• Paid but not recorded: record the payment with the right date and payment method.
• Really still open: send a friendly reminder. How to do that without losing your hospitality is covered in chasing outstanding payments.
• Will not be paid (a no-show without a card, a dispute): discuss with your accountant how to write it off, and where needed issue a credit note instead of leaving the invoice hanging.

In BedFlow PMS you switch on the Only with outstanding balance filter in the invoice list and see everything still open in one click.

2. Pro formas that never became an invoice

A booking first gets a pro forma; after the stay it becomes the final invoice with a sequential number. So a pro forma is not an invoice for your accounts. Check whether pro formas are still hanging around for stays that are already over, for example a booking you edited by hand, or a cancelled booking that was never processed as a cancellation.

Watch the stays across New Year. A guest staying from 30 December to 2 January gets their final invoice after checkout, so in January. Know in advance how your accountant wants to see that, so nobody is surprised in January that New Year's Eve revenue sits "in the new year".

3. Deposits for stays next year

This is the point most often forgotten. A guest who pays a deposit in November for a stay in April has given you money this year for a service next year. How to book that, and what it means for VAT, is your accountant's call; it depends among other things on your status. Your job is the list: which guest, what amount, which date, for which stay.

Without a system you build that list from bank statements and your inbox. With a PMS you see per booking which payments are already in, so listing next year's deposits takes a few minutes. More on asking for deposits in asking for a deposit on a direct booking.

4. Gift vouchers: sold, but not yet used

A sold gift voucher is also money received for a night still to come. List the vouchers sold this year that are still (partly) open, with their expiry date. Your accountant wants to see them, and you want to know how many stays you already "owe" next year.

In BedFlow PMS every voucher has a validity; by default a sold voucher stays valid for 24 months, and you set that period yourself. How vouchers bring in extra direct revenue is covered in selling gift vouchers.

5. Tourist tax: does what you collected match what you declared?

Tourist tax rules differ per municipality: per person or per room, declared monthly, quarterly or yearly. In December, put what you charged on your invoices next to what you already declared. Differences usually come from channels: a booking through a platform where the tax was not charged, or charged twice, or children who are exempt.

For the rules per city in Belgium: Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent and Bruges. In doubt about an amount, check your municipality's regulation; that is always the source.

6. Statistics: have all months been filed?

Belgian accommodations report their overnight stays to Statbel every month. Check that every month of this year has been submitted. A forgotten month is easy to fix in December; in June it is a reconstruction.

BedFlow PMS creates the Statbel export per property automatically on the third of every month, for the previous month. So the December export arrives on 3 January; you only have to upload the file to the Statbel portal. See the Statbel export in the guide.

Then: the numbers of the year

Once the six points are in order, it is time to look at the year itself: revenue per month and per room compared with last year, occupancy, and which channel your guests came through. That is your input for next year's rates; see setting next year's rates.

One caveat: the statistics in a PMS usually count invoices including VAT by invoice date, while your accounts work excluding VAT and sometimes by payment date. For your tax returns and annual accounts, your bookkeeping remains the source.

Less work in January

The best year-end closing is one with little left to close. That works when payments are recorded per booking, final invoices go to your accounting package automatically and the statistics export is ready every month. In BedFlow PMS you can have your invoices forwarded automatically to Yuki, Billit, Octopus or ClearFacts; see the accounting integrations.

Want to start next year without a shoebox of receipts? Try BedFlow PMS free for 30 days: bookings, payments, invoices and your channels in one overview. No credit card required.