Year-end invoicing: the November-December checklist that prevents January chaos

Year-end invoicing: the November-December checklist that prevents January chaos

January's invoicing problems are all manufactured in December: the draft nobody issued, the accepted proforma left in limbo, the expense with no paper. This is the eight-stop review we run with our customers every year-end — half an hour now, zero scares during filing season.

1. Drafts: issue them or delete them

Filter your drafts and decide one by one. Work delivered in 2026 should be issued in 2026 (the accrual already exists; the B2B rule allows until the 15th of the following month, but crossing the year complicates VAT and allocation for no reason). The zombie draft nobody remembers: bin it.

2. Accepted proformas never converted

The list of customer-accepted proformas without an invoice is money in limbo. Convert and issue — and if anything was collected against a proforma, remember: advance invoice, with its VAT, in the period of collection.

3. Received invoices: every expense with its paper

Walk the year through Received invoices: does every expense have its document uploaded? Gaps get filled now, while suppliers still answer emails — not in April. And the control spreadsheet, remember, feeds your dashboard but never replaces the original invoice.

4. Stuck states

• Processing for days: check the error (expired certificate?) and retry.
• Rejected and unmanaged: corrective invoice or a conversation — but don't close the year in the red.
• Unpaid beyond 6 months: consider the bad-debt corrective invoice before the VAT deadlines lapse — that calendar is strict.

5. Series at the turn of the year

If your series carry the year in their code (F-2026), on 1 January the system opens the new series and starts numbering automatically — touch nothing. What is worth deciding in December: if the new year needs new series (a business line splitting off, its own corrective series), create them now, ready for day one.

6. Recurring templates and 2027 rates

Raising prices in January? Edit the recurring templates in December with January effect, and give the agreed notice. It's the one moment of the year when five minutes of template editing saves twelve corrective invoices.

7. Digital certificate

Check the expiry date. If it lapses in Q1, renew in December — January to April is the worst possible time to be left without a signature.

8. The advisor's annual package

In January, generate the full annual export (books, PDFs, VeriFactu records) and hand it over. It doubles as your archive copy of the year: one ZIP, one year, one place.

The 30-minute round

Drafts → proformas → received → stuck → series → recurring → certificate → export. Eight stops, half an hour with coffee. The alternative — doing it all in January with the 303, 390 and 347 breathing down your neck — also exists, but we wish it on nobody. One stop jammed? Open a Support ticket and we'll unjam it together.