Year-end closing checklist for your Swedish AB

It’s late October and your financial year has two months left. The bokslut (year-end closing) feels like something that happens in February, but about half the work can be done now, while you still remember what each transaction was. Whatever you push to January costs more time, and sometimes money.

Reconcile everything that has a balance somewhere else

Start with the bank account. The balance on account 1930 in your books should match your bank statement exactly, at every month-end so far this year. Do it month by month now and you’ll find a misposted payment from March in ten minutes. Do it in February and you’ll spend an hour hunting.

The same goes for your skattekonto (the company’s tax account with Skatteverket). Download the transactions from Skatteverket’s e-service and compare them with the tax account in your books, usually 1630. VAT, employer contributions, preliminary tax and interest should match line by line. Then go through your accounts receivable and accounts payable ledgers. Every open invoice there should be one that really is unpaid.

Put income and costs in the right year

Accruals are the heart of the closing. If you paid 24,000 kronor for insurance on 1 October covering the next twelve months, only 6,000 kronor belongs to 2026. The remaining 18,000 kronor gets moved to prepaid expenses. If you did a job in December that you won’t invoice until January, the income goes into 2026 as accrued income.

If you follow K2, the simplified accounting framework most small ABs use, you normally don’t need to accrue items below a certain threshold. The Swedish Accounting Standards Board says the limit is 5,000 kronor and rises to 7,000 kronor from 2026 for companies that prepare an annual report. Check which limit applies to your particular financial year before relying on it. The limit is per invoice or agreement, and you can’t split a purchase across several invoices just to stay under it.

Count your stock when the year ends, not when it suits you

If the company holds inventory, it has to be counted as of the closing date. Count it, write down quantities and cost, and keep the list as supporting documentation. A stock figure estimated after the fact holds up poorly if Skatteverket asks.

For tax purposes you can choose a simplified rule and value the stock at 97 percent of its total acquisition cost, which is effectively a flat 3 percent write-down. The condition is that the whole stock is then valued at cost. If you have a lot of old goods you can’t sell, valuing at net realisable value may give you more, so run the numbers both ways.

Work out the tax before the year is over

Many people skip this step, and it costs them interest. Corporate tax is 20.6 percent, and the preliminary tax you’ve paid during the year is based on a forecast you made a long time ago.

Say the company looks set to land on a taxable profit of 450,000 kronor. The tax is then 450,000 × 0.206 = 92,700 kronor. If you’ve paid 5,000 kronor a month in preliminary tax, 60,000 kronor for the year, you’re 32,700 kronor short. Because that’s more than 30,000 kronor, you need to make an extra payment to the tax account by 12 February 2027 to avoid interest. Had the shortfall been 30,000 kronor or less, paying by 3 May 2027 would have been enough.

It works the other way too. If the profit looks lower than you expected, you can file a new preliminär inkomstdeklaration (preliminary tax return) and lower the monthly amount. And if you want to even out profit between years, now is when you decide whether a periodiseringsfond (tax allocation reserve) is worth it.

What has to be done by 31 December

Not everything can be fixed afterwards. Some things have to be done, paid or documented before the year ends:

• salary to yourself that should belong to 2026, paid out in December at the latest
• equipment you want to deduct this year, delivered and booked before year-end
• bank statements and tax account statements as of 31 December, saved as PDFs
• stock count done and signed as of the closing date
• unpaid customer invoices reviewed, so you know which ones are doubtful

The dates after New Year

With the calendar year as your financial year, the årsstämma (annual general meeting) must be held within six months of the end of the financial year, so by 30 June 2027. That’s where the income statement and balance sheet are formally adopted. The signed årsredovisning (annual report) with its certificate of adoption must then reach Bolagsverket within seven months of the end of the financial year. If the company has an auditor, the annual report has to be ready at least six weeks before the meeting, so count backwards from there.

The Inkomstdeklaration 2 (the company’s income tax return) for a financial year ending in December 2026 is due by 2 August 2027. It’s built on the same figures as the annual report, so in practice you do them together. Aim for a preliminary closing in January, so you know the tax before 12 February, and a finished closing in March.

The next step is simple: open your books tonight and reconcile the bank for January through September. It takes one evening, and that evening is what makes the rest of the closing go fast.