September closes with one last checklist, this one built around what a chiropractic practice needs in its books before the year turns over. Between insurance receivables that drag into the new year, prepaid care packages, and associate pay, a practice has more moving pieces at year-end than most small businesses. Getting ahead of them now keeps January from turning into a scramble.
This checklist is about the books themselves: what has to be true in your accounting file before the year closes, so your CPA, your lender, and you are all looking at the same accurate numbers.
That means the operating account, the merchant processor, any savings or reserve account, and credit cards. Insurance payments that arrive as EFTs with a separate remittance need to be matched to deposits, not just accepted as a lump sum. Starting Q4 with no backlog makes everything after it faster.
Look at your chart of accounts. Insurance collections, cash-pay visits, prepaid care plans, and product sales such as supplements or braces behave differently, and they belong on separate lines. If you handle personal injury cases paid at settlement, track those balances separately too, because they can sit open for months. A single revenue line hides which part of the practice is growing and which is slipping.
If associates are paid on a share of collections or production, reconcile what you paid against what the practice actually collected for their patients. Errors here compound all year and are much harder to unwind in February.
Make sure employee addresses, pay rates, and any bonuses or benefits paid this year are recorded correctly in payroll, so W-2s go out right the first time.
For payments made in 2026, the Form 1099-NEC reporting threshold is $2,000, up from $600. Gather W-9s now from anyone who may cross it, and let your CPA confirm who needs a form.
Update your cash forecast through March, not just December. Deductibles reset in January, and the lower insurance payments that follow show up in collections a few weeks later.
Finally, put a date on the calendar to review the year with your bookkeeper and your CPA before it closes. A practice whose books are current in December has options. A practice catching up in February only has paperwork.
Jeremy Brewer is the founder of 911 Bookkeepers LLC in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 911 Bookkeepers partners with MBJA Accounting Service to give chiropractic and MDVIP practices clean, current financials. He is a Xero Certified Advisor.
Book a free 30-minute financial checkup and find out exactly where your business stands.