Fiscal year closing checklist for Nepali businesses (Asar end)

Four weeks out: chase, do not compute

Confirm party balances. Send a statement to your largest customers and your largest suppliers, and ask them to agree it. Do this early, because disagreements take time to sort out. Most differences come from one of these:

• A bill dated at the end of a Nepali month that the other side recorded in the next month.
• A credit note issued by one party and never recorded by the other.
• An advance treated as a sale.

Collect what you can. Receivables are the amounts customers still owe you. Your closing receivables figure is only honest if you have really tried to collect. Run an ageing list, which sorts dues by how long they have been unpaid, and start with the oldest. Decide now which dues you are likely to write off. Do not leave that to be discovered next year.

Get supplier bills in. Every purchase made in the year should be recorded in the year. A bill left in a drawer is input VAT you may not be able to claim, and a cost that does not show in your figures.

Ask your accountant what they want. Different accountants want different exports. Ask now which exports they need and in what format. Then the handover is a file you send, not a long conversation.

Two weeks out: count and reconcile

Reconcile cash and bank. Count the cash physically and compare it with the cash ledger. Match every bank account against its statement. Write down any difference. Do not change figures just to make them agree.

Count stock. Do a physical count, branch by branch and warehouse by warehouse, and compare it with what the system says. Use count sheets, and count when the shop is closed or quiet. Post the adjustments with reasons. Do not quietly edit quantities.

Review stock you are carrying for no reason. This means dead lines (items that no longer sell), damaged goods, and anything past or near its expiry date. Decide what to do with it and post it now. Carrying it into the new year only makes your stock value look higher than it is.

Check valuation. Know the method you use to value stock, and apply it the same way every time. If your system values stock at weighted average cost (the average purchase cost of the units you hold), take your closing figure from the system. Do not use a spreadsheet that nobody else can reproduce.

Settle goods in transit. Anything dispatched from one location and not yet received has to be resolved. It is either received, returned, or settled as a loss with a reason. This step prevents more confusion in the new year than any other.

One week out: compliance and paperwork

Confirm every VAT return for the year is filed and paid, including nil months, and that the registers agree with the returns you filed. If something is wrong, it is better to know now.

Confirm your withholding is deposited and certified. Every TDS deduction you took should have been deposited, and every payee should have a deduction certificate.

Check invoice numbering. There should be one sequence per fiscal year, with no gaps and nothing reused. There should be no separate bill book running alongside the system. Gaps are the first thing an officer looks for.

Hand the tax and accounting judgements to your accountant. Depreciation on fixed assets, provisions, write-offs and the tax computation are theirs. Your job is to give them complete records.

Asar end: back up, lock, carry forward

Back up the year. Back up the database and logs, and store the backup on a different machine. Where you bill electronically, this is required. The Electronic Billing Procedure 2074 requires a backup of each fiscal year’s database and logs, kept for as long as you must keep your accounts. It also does not allow entered data to be deleted.

Lock the closed year. Allow no back-dated entries after returns are filed and accounts are prepared. Otherwise the figures you filed can still change.

Carry forward only verified balances. That means party balances you have agreed, cash and bank you have counted, and stock you have counted and valued. Carry forward nothing else.

Do the Shrawan housekeeping. Remove access for people who have left, review who can discount and who can edit prices, refresh price lists, and set the new year’s numbering running.

Which dates matter at the close?

All of this runs on the Bikram Sambat calendar, and the deadlines that matter are set in Nepali months. Keep your reminders in BS instead of converting dates in your head. Keep a date converter ready for when a supplier or a bank works in the Gregorian calendar.

How Kuver Books handles the close

Kuver Books runs the close as a guided process: 5-step guided fiscal-year close. The steps follow the order above. You settle outstanding customer and supplier balances. You verify inventory and its valuation, with batch numbers carried into the new year. You clear anything still in transit. The system locks the closed year and takes a backup. Then it opens the new year with balances carried forward.

After the close, the closed year stays available read-only. An auditor can search, filter, export and print it without anyone reopening the year. Reports are organised by Nepali fiscal year, and the VAT registers and the counterparty schedule export for filing. The activity log shows who did what during the close. You can see the reporting side on the reports page and the stock side on the inventory page.

What no system can do is make the judgement calls. Write-offs, depreciation, provisions and the tax computation belong with your accountant, and any question about what the law requires for your year should go to the IRD or your accountant before you file.