The Fiscal Year-End Is a Closing of the Numbers, and a Turning Point for the Owner
The fiscal year-end is, at the same time as being a period of procedures for closing the books, one of the few opportunities for a business owner to look back over a year. In reality, however, it is also a period where, chased by the closing work, the looking back becomes a formality and the arrangements for the next period tend to become haphazard.
The central point of this article is to spend the year's turning point divided into the closing of accounts and a look back as a business owner. It does not describe how to carry out the closing process; it deals with how to use the turning point.
The Sun Goes Once Around the Zodiac in One Year
The Sun moves through one sign in about a month, and goes once around the zodiac in one year. That one circuit is the foundation of the turning of the seasons. The turning points of the seasons in 2027 are: it enters Aries on March 21 (the spring equinox), enters Cancer on June 21 (the summer solstice), enters Libra on September 23 (the autumn equinox), and enters Capricorn on December 22 (the winter solstice).
A company's fiscal year begins at a different time for each company. However, the turning point of the Sun's one circuit arrives in common for all companies. If you view your own company's fiscal year-end side by side with the Sun's seasonal turning points, you notice that several turning points can be placed within a year. Rather than making the fiscal year-end the only turning point, this article proposes using the turning points of the seasons as periods for light, intermediate checks.
Two Tasks to Carry Out Separately at the Fiscal Year-End
The first is the closing of the numbers. This is the original work of the closing of accounts, and an area advanced with professionals such as accountants. The owner's role lies in confirming the accuracy of the numbers and clarifying the matters to carry over into the next period.
The second is looking back at your judgments. This is the work of lining up the main decisions you made this year and seeing how each turned out. Line up not only the decisions that went well, but also the decisions you postponed. The list of postponements is, itself, the first issue of the next period.
If you try to do these two together on the same day, the looking back gets washed away by the weight of the closing work. The key point of how to spend the fiscal year-end is to decide the arrangements for separating the closing and the looking back in advance — for example, shifting the timing by a few days, or doing the looking back first.
Here is one concrete work example: before the fiscal numbers are settled, you first look back, from your own records as owner, at how the hiring and pricing judgments decided in the previous period actually appeared as results. The numbers can be confirmed later, but the reasons for the judgments fade even from your own memory if you miss the period.
Using the Turning Points of the Seasons for Intermediate Checks
The Sun's movement of about a month per sign is too fine, but the turning points of the seasons come four times a year, a usable interval for intermediate checks. Around the spring equinox, the start of the next period; around the summer solstice, how the first half is progressing; around the autumn equinox, the arrangements for the second half; around the winter solstice, the year-end and preparation for the next period.
These checks do not need to be large meetings. Keeping the record of the looking back you placed at the fiscal year-end at hand, and briefly checking whether what you decided is advancing and whether postponements have been resolved, is enough. By not ending the fiscal year-end look back as a one-time event, and connecting it with the seasonal checks, the turning point becomes a line rather than a point.
Even in a company whose fiscal year does not begin in spring, the turning points of the seasons can be used as they are. You simply layer common guides — spring equinox, summer solstice, autumn equinox, winter solstice — on top of the flow of your own company's year. A placement such as using the winter solstice, which falls in the middle of the fiscal year, as a year-end turning point can be decided without strain, layering the company's calendar and the Sun's calendar.
The Meaning of Layering Turning Points
A business owner's sense of time lies between the deadlines of each day and the long cycles of the business. The Sun's one circuit is a solid turning point in between. While viewing the milestones of the business in long cycles such as Saturn's roughly 29 years and Jupiter's roughly 12 years, you carry out the yearly checks in the Sun's one circuit. By using cycles of different sizes for different purposes, the fiscal year-end becomes usable not as a mere mountain of administration, but as a period for putting your judgments in order.
A horoscope does not predict business results, nor does it influence the content of a closing of accounts. The cycles are a guide for not postponing looking back and checking. This article recommends the use of not spending the turning point of the fiscal year-end on the closing alone, but using it also for checking the owner's own judgments.