The 31 March year-end checklist

The New Zealand tax year closes on 31 March, and a handful of actions only count if they happen before that date. None of them take long, and all of them are frustrating to discover on 2 April. This is the checklist, split into what must happen before balance date and what makes the weeks after easier.

Do these before 31 March

• Write off genuinely bad debts, in the books, now. A debt written off before balance date is deductible this year, and on the invoice basis its GST comes back. A debt only "provided for", or written off in April, waits a full year. The late-payers guide covers when writing off is the right call, and the deadline is what makes March the month to decide.
• Buy the small gear you already intended to buy. Assets at $1,000 or less before GST purchased by 31 March are a full deduction in this year's return, while the same purchase in April deducts a year later. This is a timing decision for purchases you were already planning, not a reason to buy things. Spending $900 to save around $300 of tax still leaves you $600 out of pocket.
• Check your logbook and floor plan are current. If your vehicle logbook is approaching three years old, or your home office changed shape this year, the records behind those claims need to reflect reality before the year they support closes.
• Chase what can still be chased. A payment that arrives before balance date is this year's cash and counts in this year. Late March is a natural moment for a polite nudge on everything outstanding.

In the weeks after

• Reconcile the year. Gather every invoice issued and its status, and every expense with its receipt, filed so the IR3 and the IR10 can be built from them without any digging.
• The March GST return for the period ending 31 March is due 7 May, while the year's figures are fresh. It is the natural moment to confirm the GST you collected matches the GST you set aside.
• File early if the year was good. The return is due 7 July, but a big year means a big terminal tax and possibly provisional instalments starting in August. The sooner the assessment exists, the more time you have to arrange for it.
• Reset the year ahead. Revisit your set-aside percentage against the effective rate your new income level implies, and revisit your own rate if your costs or the market have moved.

What this list deliberately skips

Year-end folklore includes aggressive moves this checklist doesn't make, such as shifting income between years, invented expenses, and provisions dressed up as write-offs. Timing genuine transactions you were making anyway is planning. Manufacturing transactions for the tax effect is the thing audits exist to find. When a year-end move needs more than one sentence to justify, it is a question for your accountant, not a checklist.

How Coffer helps

Most of this checklist is easy if you kept your records all year. Coffer tracks your invoice statuses, so your chase list and bad-debt candidates are one glance away. It keeps your expenses with their dates, so the $1,000-rule timing is clear. And it holds the year's tax set-aside next to what the IR3 will soon make official. At year end you're reviewing numbers, not rebuilding them.