Automate year-end financial statement workflows

Audit managers and firm owners can automate the year-end financial statement cycle — requesting working papers, tracking adjusting journal entries, routing partner signoff, and delivering the statement package with its invoice.

This guide assumes you have already read one of the recurring automation guides, such as Automate monthly bookkeeping, since the five setup steps are the same. Only the pipeline shape and the fiscal-year timing differ.

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Overview of the year-end automation chain

Five pieces connect to make a year-end cycle run on its own:

1. Service template and tag: defines the year-end service and the tag that identifies it.
2. Job template: defines the job created for each fiscal year, its offsets, its checklist tasks, and its invoice.
3. Pipeline and stage automations: the board the job moves across, and the actions attached to each stage.
4. Pipeline trigger: listens for On Service Update and creates the job when a tagged year-end service is attached to a client.
5. Client service: attaching the service to a client, which starts the schedule.

Year-end differs from monthly work in one important way: the period is driven by each client’s fiscal year end rather than the calendar month, so the job template’s offsets are counted from the fiscal year end.

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Example year-end pipeline stages

These stages are an example you build yourself. Assisterp does not ship a year-end pipeline — you create the board and name the stages.

Stage 1: Working paper intake (entry stage)

• Goal: collect the trial balance, general ledger, and supporting schedules for the closed fiscal year.
• Stage condition: none. The first stage on a pipeline is the entry point for new jobs.
• Automations:
  • Email: emails the client’s contact requesting the year-end trial balance and ledger.
  • Task: creates the intake task, such as Collect trial balance and year-end ledger.

Stage 2: Adjusting entries and GIFI mapping

• Goal: post adjusting journal entries and map accounts to GIFI codes.
• Automations:
  • Task: creates the AJE posting and GIFI mapping tasks.
• Turn on Auto-move here so the job advances once those tasks are complete.

Stage 3: Manager review

• Goal: a manager reviews the draft statements against the working papers.
• Automations:
  • Task: creates the manager review task.

Stage 4: Partner signoff

• Goal: a partner performs the final quality review and signs off.
• Automations:
  • Task: creates the partner signoff task, assigned to the partner.
• Leave Auto-move off on this stage so a job cannot advance without a deliberate signoff.

Stage 5: Delivery and billing

• Goal: send the statement package and bill the engagement.
• Automations:
  • Email: emails the completed statement package to the client.
  • Invoice: generates the year-end invoice from your invoice template.

Stage 6: Completed

• Goal: hold finished years so the board shows only live work.
• Archive the job once the invoice is settled.

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Step 1: Confirm your year-end service template and tag

1. Open Settings > Templates > Service templates.
2. Confirm you have a year-end service template with an Annually reporting period.
3. Under Settings > Organization > Service Settings, confirm the service tag you will use to identify year-end work.

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Step 2: Create the year-end job template

1. Open Settings > WorkFlow Setting > Job Templates.
2. Select the Service Templates tab, then Add (the plus icon).
3. Enter a Template Name, such as Year-end financial statement job.
4. In Job Name, use shortcodes so each year is identifiable, such as Year-end - [Client Name] - [Period].
5. Set Job Start Offset (Days) and Job End Offset (Days) counted from the fiscal year end, allowing for the time your firm needs after the books close.
6. Under Task, attach the working paper, AJE, review, and signoff tasks.
7. Under Invoice, attach your year-end invoice template.
8. Select Save.

Because fiscal year ends differ by client, set Fiscal Year End and Service Start From on the template rather than assuming a December year end. See Automate T2 corporate tax for how fiscal-year-driven timing behaves.

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Step 3: Configure the pipeline and stage automations

1. Open Settings > WorkFlow Setting > Pipelines.
2. Select your year-end pipeline, or select Add to build one.
3. Create the six stages above.
4. On each stage, select Add Automation and attach the Task, Invoice, and Email actions listed for that stage.
5. Turn on Auto-move on Adjusting entries and GIFI mapping only.

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Step 4: Build the pipeline trigger

1. Open Settings > WorkFlow Setting > Pipeline Trigger.
2. Select Add (the plus icon).
3. In Trigger When Start, select On Service Update. This is the only trigger event available.
4. In Pipeline, select your year-end pipeline.
5. In Job Template, select your year-end job template.
6. In Tags, select your year-end service tag.
7. Select Save.

On Service Update fires on every save of a matching service, not only when the service is first added. Editing a client’s existing year-end service — changing its frequency, tag, or fiscal year — re-evaluates the trigger and can create work again. Make service edits deliberately.

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Step 5: Attach the service to a client

1. Open Clients, select a corporate client, and open the Services tab.
2. Select Add New Service.
3. Choose your year-end service template.
4. Set the Service Start Date to the first fiscal year you want covered.
5. Confirm the service tag matches the tag on your trigger.
6. Save the service.

If you set a start date in a closed prior year, Assisterp creates a job for every year between that date and today, so a client with several unfiled years generates several jobs at once. See Backdate a service to catch up on prior periods.

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Related guides

• Automate T2 corporate tax covers the fiscal-year timing this guide depends on.
• Automate monthly bookkeeping covers the same five steps for a monthly cycle.
• Pipeline triggers covers trigger behaviour in detail.