Year-End Accounts & Planning
The year's figures, made clear. The path ahead, made easier.
Year-end accounts prepared carefully, with a calm conversation to walk through what they mean and what the coming year might hold.
What this gives you
Accounts that reflect the reality of a creative career.
Year-end accounts prepared by someone who doesn't understand how performing arts income works tend to look a little off — categories that don't quite fit, questions left unanswered, a document that feels like it belongs to someone else's career.
We prepare accounts with the specific shape of a performing career in mind: irregular income, touring costs, royalty streams, per-show expenses. The figures are accurate, but more than that, they're legible — you'll be able to read them and understand what they say about your year.
What you'll come away with
- Complete year-end accounts ready for filing or professional review
- A plain-language walkthrough so the figures actually make sense
- A calm planning conversation about the year ahead
- Clarity on where your income came from and where costs went
The difficulty of year-end for performers
Year-end can feel like a reckoning when it doesn't have to.
For many performers and ensembles, the end of the financial year arrives with a mixture of dread and relief. Dread because the paperwork has piled up and it's not entirely clear what's there. Relief because, at least, it only happens once a year.
The specific challenge for creative professionals is that standard accounting categories rarely map neatly onto how performing arts income and expenditure actually work. Tour costs, shared production expenses, royalty advances, settlement receipts — these don't always have an obvious home in a generic accounts template, and getting them wrong can create problems.
There's also the planning dimension. Year-end is the natural moment to look at what the year produced financially and think clearly about what comes next — but it's hard to do that when the figures themselves feel opaque.
Our approach
Accounts prepared with care, explained in plain language.
Accounts preparation
We gather your income and expenditure records, apply the categories that fit a performing career, and produce accounts that are accurate and clearly structured — ready for filing or for sharing with an accountant.
Plain-language walkthrough
We set aside time to go through the accounts with you — not to present figures, but to explain what they mean in terms of your career. Questions are welcome throughout; no question is too basic.
Planning conversation
With the year in clear view, we have a forward-looking conversation — upcoming tours, potential income changes, costs worth thinking about in advance. Not prescriptive advice, but a calm discussion to help you think ahead.
Working together
Unhurried, thorough, and in plain English throughout.
The process starts with a conversation — we want to understand how your year went before we look at the records. That context makes the accounts more accurate and the walkthrough more useful.
Once we've gathered what we need, we prepare the accounts and then walk through them with you. We take our time with this part. There's rarely a good reason to rush, and it's more useful if you leave the conversation feeling clear rather than slightly more confused.
The planning conversation is separate — usually a few weeks after the accounts are done, when there's been time to sit with the figures. It tends to be one of the more useful conversations of the year for the people we work with.
How the process unfolds
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01
Initial conversation
We talk through your year — what happened, how income and costs were structured, anything that feels uncertain.
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02
We gather and prepare
You send us your records and we prepare the accounts carefully, checking anything unclear before finalising.
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03
Walkthrough together
We go through the accounts in plain language, explaining each section and taking time to answer questions.
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04
Planning conversation
A separate, forward-looking conversation about the year ahead — costs to consider, income to anticipate, decisions worth thinking about now.
Investment
A fixed fee. No surprises at the end.
This service is priced at a flat $640 USD, covering accounts preparation, the plain-language walkthrough, and the planning conversation. That's the full fee — there are no additions for questions, follow-up clarifications, or the time we spend on the planning conversation.
If your records are unusually complex — multiple legal entities, significant international income, or a particularly high volume of transactions — we'll let you know before we begin whether a different arrangement makes more sense. We'd rather be upfront about that than add costs at the end.
We offer a free initial conversation before any commitment, so you can get a clear sense of what the process involves and whether we're the right fit for your situation.
What's included
- Initial conversation about your year and records
- Full year-end accounts preparation
- Plain-language walkthrough of the completed accounts
- Forward-looking planning conversation
- Follow-up questions answered after the walkthrough
- Final accounts document delivered to you
Fixed fee
$640 USD
Everything included. No additions.
How it works in practice
Accounts that fit a performing career, not a generic template.
Performing arts finances have a particular shape: income from multiple sources that don't follow a regular pattern, costs that relate directly to specific engagements, royalties that arrive with a reporting lag, and shared expenses that need to be recorded correctly.
The accounts we prepare reflect that shape. Each income stream is recorded clearly, production costs are attributed correctly, and the overall picture gives an honest view of the year. This makes the accounts useful — not just a compliance document, but something you can actually read and learn from.
Realistic timelines: from initial conversation to completed accounts typically takes two to four weeks, depending on the completeness of the records you're starting with. We'll give you a more specific timeline after the initial conversation.
What we typically cover
Typical completion time
Two to four weeks from receiving your records, depending on complexity. We'll be clear about the timeline before we begin, and we'll stay in touch throughout if anything needs clarifying.
Working with confidence
Accounts you can rely on, explained so you understand them.
The accounts we prepare are checked carefully before they reach you. If something looks uncertain during preparation, we'll raise it before finalising — not after. We'd rather take an extra day to get something right than deliver figures we're not confident in.
If, after the walkthrough, something doesn't feel right to you — a category that seems wrong, a figure that doesn't match your expectation — tell us. We'll look at it again with fresh eyes and explain our reasoning, or correct it if we've made an error.
The initial conversation is free and carries no obligation. It's an opportunity to understand each other's working style before committing to anything.
Our commitments to you
- A free initial conversation before any commitment
- Accounts checked carefully before delivery
- Unhurried walkthrough with questions welcomed
- Any errors corrected promptly and without fuss
- Fixed fee — no additions for questions or follow-up
Getting started
A simple path from here.
Get in touch
A short message describing where you are with your records and what you'd like from year-end. We'll arrange a free initial conversation from there.
We talk through the year
A free conversation about your income, costs, and records — and an honest assessment of what the accounts process will involve for your particular situation.
We prepare and walk through
Once you're happy to proceed, we gather your records, prepare the accounts, and walk through them together. The planning conversation follows at a time that suits you.
Ready when you are
Let's make this year-end straightforward.
A short message is all it takes to begin. We'll arrange a free conversation and go from there at a pace that suits you.
Talk to us about your year-endOther services
Explore what else we offer.
Touring Bookkeeping & Settlements
Tidy per-show records and clear venue settlements for performers and touring productions.
Royalty & Performance Income Tracking
All your royalty and performance income across sources, gathered into clear monthly statements.