The financial year month by month – what should happen between the deadlines?

The deadlines are in the annual cycle. This is about the work between them: what you deliver each month, what the accountant checks, and why a review in September and November makes the year-end close in March cheaper. Accounts kept up to date through the year take less work in total than accounts put right afterwards.

This is not the deadline calendar

The dates – the a-melding on the 5th, the VAT periods, the shareholder register statement on 31 January, the tax return on 31 May, the general meeting by 30 June, the annual accounts by 31 July – are collected in The annual cycle for a Norwegian AS This article is about something else: what should happen between the deadlines. Accounts rarely become expensive because a date was missed. They become expensive because the work before the date was not done, and someone had to reconstruct three months of documentation in two days.

Do the accounts have to be kept monthly?

Not under the law. The Bookkeeping Act requires the accounts to be kept up to date as often as the nature and scale of the business requires, and within the deadlines for mandatory reporting. For many businesses the VAT deadlines mean the accounts have to be closed and checked every two months anyway. Smaller businesses can in some cases update less often. But the statutory minimum is not necessarily the best working routine. For most small businesses a monthly rhythm is cheaper in practice, because discrepancies, missing receipts and unpaid invoices are caught while someone still remembers what happened.

The basic rhythm: what you deliver each month

Whatever the month, the client's part is roughly the same. Invoice completed work · send in receipts and supplier invoices that do not arrive electronically · approve invoices and payments · explain unusual bank transactions · chase customers who have not paid · deliver timesheets and payroll data · flag new loans, agreements, employees and larger purchases. Where all that arrives continuously through the system, you may not need to send a separate «monthly package» at all. That is exactly the point of a digital document flow – see Digital document flow

The basic rhythm: what the accountant checks

The scope follows the engagement agreement, but good continuing control often covers bookkeeping and checking records, the VAT treatment, chasing missing documentation, reconciling the bank and the ledgers, the payroll run where included, following the public deadlines, and reporting the result and any variances. Some businesses need a full monthly report. Others need periodic reporting when something material has happened. The workload should fit the business, not a standard annual cycle. Who does what is agreed at the start – see The engagement agreement with your accountant

January and February: close last year properly

January is the bridge between two financial years, and the most important job is making December complete. Get the last records in · settle unidentified bank transactions · finish documenting the inventory · collect annual statements from banks and lenders as they arrive · check loans, interest and other year-end items. January is also a good time to check that standing agreements, salaries and system access are still right for the new year. By February the year-end close should be well under way: the bank and loans, customer and supplier items, holiday pay and payroll, VAT, fixed assets, owner transactions and the other balance sheet accounts. Missing documentation found in February leaves plenty of time to obtain it. Found on 29 May, it is an entirely different situation.

March and April: look forward, not only back

Once last year's figures start to firm up, March is a good time for the year's first proper financial review: the result so far, the bank balance, outstanding customers, running costs, expected tax and investments coming later in the year. April brings the first large VAT check for businesses on ordinary periods. Before the return is filed, the sales should be booked, the purchase records received, the VAT codes checked, the relevant accounts reconciled and any foreign purchases assessed. It is also a natural point to see how the business stands against budget after the first quarter.

May to July: the formal part of the year

The tax return, the general meeting and filing the annual accounts sit close together in this period. For accounts kept up to date through the year, May is mostly finishing and checking. Where the accountant only now has to start hunting for records from February, the annual process started too late. June and July are also months when many pay holiday pay, though the timing follows the business's own holiday and payroll routines and is not June for everyone. Planned in good time, the pay, the withholding and the reporting come out right first time. File the annual accounts shortly after the general meeting rather than treating the last fee-free date as the working deadline. The dates are in The annual cycle for a Norwegian AS

August: get back quickly after the holidays

Summer does not stop the accounts, but in practice the flow of records slows anyway. August is therefore a good month for tidying: holiday expenses not submitted, credit card receipts, supplier invoices, customer follow-up and bank reconciliation. It is also a natural point for a financial report after the first half, if that has not already been done. Where the company has a general manager, this is worth noting: the Companies Act requires the general manager to inform the board about the business, its position and the development of results at least every four months. Monthly or quarterly board reports are good practice, but the statutory minimum is something else and has to be met regardless.

September to November: the review that actually saves money

This is the part of the year most people skip, and the one with the largest effect on the price. The year-end close formally happens after the financial year ends. But most of the preparation can be done before. An autumn review typically finds errors in the fixed asset register, old customer and supplier items, undocumented loans, shareholder items, missing records, incorrect VAT treatment, unresolved balances and the need for a stock count. For a limited company, autumn is also the right time to look at loans between the company and its shareholders, private purchases on company cards, dividends resolved or planned, intra-group balances and capital changes – see Loans from your own company Such items are considerably easier to handle in October than when the annual accounts are nearly finished. Where the business holds inventory, November should be used to plan how the stock will be documented. The general rule is a count at the end of the financial year – see Inventory at the year-end close

December: make the year end easy

The rest of December should go on making the year's documentation as complete as possible. Check that every sales invoice has been sent · that supplier invoices have arrived · that larger purchases are documented · that owner transactions are settled · that loan agreements exist · that employees have submitted expenses · that the inventory will be documented · that bad debts are assessed · that the bank transactions can be explained. Good December work means the year-end close starts with tidy accounts instead of months of detective work. What the close actually consists of is in The year-end close for a company and a sole trader

Payroll has its own rhythm

Where the business has employees, payroll should be treated as its own fixed process with its own internal deadlines. The client delivers timesheets, bonuses, absences and other variable information by an agreed deadline. The accountant or payroll manager runs the payroll. The a-melding is as a general rule due by the 5th of the following month. But from 2026 a payment rule applies that does not follow the calendar: the advance deduction has to be paid directly to Skatteetaten by the first working day after the salary is paid and the deduction made. The old withholding account has gone. Several payroll runs in the same month therefore mean several due dates. That makes payroll more time-sensitive than older annual cycles show – see A monthly checklist for the payroll run

The point of an annual cycle is not the deadlines

Deadlines matter. But a good financial year is more about what happens between them. Where the business sends records every month, chases customers, settles unknown bank items, delivers payroll data, answers questions and actually looks at the result, the public deadlines become far less dramatic. The biggest gain is not that the deadlines get easier either. It is that you know how the business is doing while you can still do something about it: the result, the liquidity, the receivables, the cost development, and how much tax and VAT is about to fall due. The accounts then become a management tool, not just documentation produced for the authorities. At Greenleaf we agree the division of work and the internal deadlines at the start, and review the balance sheet items before the year-end close rather than during it.

This is general guidance, not advice on your specific case. Deadlines, rates and amounts change – always check the current rules, or get in touch with us.

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