What a good accountant needs from you to compile a clean set of AFS

Many businesses discover their accountant is drowning in incomplete records only weeks before a deadline. A half-finished ledger, receipts shoved in a shoebox, invoices scattered across email threads, and VAT returns that don't reconcile to the bank account — these are the nightmares that turn a two-week job into eight weeks of chaos. By then, the pressure is on, corners get cut, and the compiled financial statements that emerge are fragile: they don't tell the true story of the business, they create compliance risk, and they become expensive to fix if a query lands from SARS or a stakeholder.

A good accountant preparing your annual financial statements needs you to do the heavy lifting first. Not because they're lazy, but because rubbish in means rubbish out. Your role is to supply clean, organised, complete data. Their role is to compile that into AFS that are accurate, coherent and defensible. Blurring those lines is where most compile jobs fall apart.

Get your books transaction-ready before handover

Your accountant needs a general ledger — or at minimum, bank statements, VAT records, and a credible list of who you owe and who owes you — that's been reconciled to the real world. That means the bank balance in your records should match your actual bank balance. Your VAT output should square with your input and net payment (or refund) to SARS. Debtors and creditors should tie to actual invoices and statements, not guesses.

If you've been doing this yourself in a spreadsheet or basic accounting software, step back and verify. Import three months of bank statements and tick off each transaction against your records. You'll spot the gaps. Fix them before your accountant starts. A good provider will ask for a trial balance or at least a recent bank reconciliation as proof that the foundations are sound. If you can't produce one, tell them upfront — they'll factor in extra time and cost, but at least you're being honest.

Decide what detail you want captured

Does your accountant need to see every individual receipt, or are you comfortable with monthly summaries by cost category? Are there subsidiary records — petty cash, stock counts, fixed asset registers — that need to be included or verified? Are you claiming depreciation, and if so, do you have a schedule of assets with their cost and dates acquired? Do you have an accurate count of cash on hand?

Before you hand over, agree on what your accountant needs to see and in what form. Some providers ask for every receipt; others work from bank statements and category totals. Neither is wrong — it's about what gives them confidence to compile clean AFS and what you're comfortable with in terms of audit trail. Spell this out upfront so you don't send a banker's box of paper and discover they wanted a spreadsheet, or vice versa.

Highlight anything unusual or one-off

If you paid a big invoice that's partly personal, partly business, your accountant needs to know. If you took cash out of the bank for your own use, it should be recorded as a drawing. If a large receipt covers multiple months or years, or spans different business purposes, flag it. If you've got related-party transactions — money moving between you and a spouse's company or a family loan — bring those forward with the paperwork.

Unusual items are not a problem. Buried or hidden ones are. A good accountant wants to compile AFS that reflect reality and can withstand scrutiny. Transparency upfront prevents nasty surprises and corrections later.

Bundle key documents together

Gather your directors' resolutions (if any unusual decisions were made), any outstanding legal disputes, VAT registration certificate if you're VAT-registered, and proof of any major year-end adjustments — a written-off bad debt, a warranty claim received, anything that affects the numbers. If you're a close corporation or have a specific legal structure, make sure your accountant has the founding documents.

A clean handover means less back-and-forth, faster turnaround, and AFS you can actually trust. When you're ready to move forward, seek out a verified accountant on Strove who specialises in compilation work and can walk you through exactly what they need in the format that works best for both of you.