When your accountant asks for your end-of-year numbers, the question is not really "what did you earn and spend?" Your accounting software already has that. The question is whether the data in that software is accurate, complete, and categorised correctly.

For most small businesses, it is not. There are transactions that were never reconciled. Expenses that were categorised as "miscellaneous" because nobody could remember what they were for. Revenue that was invoiced but never followed up. Receipts that exist somewhere, probably.

EOFY reporting is painful because of what did not happen during the year, not because of what needs to happen in June. The fix is setting up reporting that runs automatically throughout the year, so the EOFY numbers are already clean when you need them.

What your accountant actually needs from you

Strip away the complexity and your accountant needs four things:

A complete revenue picture. Every invoice issued, whether paid or not. Every payment received, matched to the right invoice. Every credit note or refund, clearly recorded.

A complete expense picture. Every business expense categorised correctly. Receipts for anything over $82.50. Subscriptions, one-off purchases, contractor payments, travel, and any reimbursements separated from personal spending.

Asset records. Anything you bought during the year that will be depreciated: equipment, vehicles, computers, furniture. Purchase date, cost, and expected useful life.

Payroll records. If you have employees: wages paid, super contributions made (and when), leave balances, and any fringe benefits provided. Your payroll platform should handle most of this, but confirming it is complete before EOFY saves back-and-forth later.

The reports worth automating

Monthly profit and loss summary

A monthly P&L pulled from your accounting software and delivered to your inbox on the first of each month. Revenue minus expenses, broken down by category. This is the single most useful report for any small business, and it takes less than a minute to automate.

Why it matters for EOFY: if you have been reading this report every month, you already know your annual numbers before your accountant asks. There are no surprises. If a category looks wrong in March, you fix it in March, not in a panic during July.

Weekly cash position

Your bank balance, outstanding receivables (money owed to you), and outstanding payables (money you owe). Delivered every Monday morning. This is not an accounting report in the formal sense, but it is the number that tells you whether your business can pay its bills next week.

Why it matters for EOFY: businesses that track cash weekly rarely have the "we invoiced $50,000 but only collected $30,000" surprise that derails EOFY planning.

Overdue invoice report

A list of invoices that are past their payment terms, how many days overdue, and the total outstanding. Delivered weekly or triggered when any invoice crosses a threshold (say, 14 days overdue).

Why it matters for EOFY: overdue invoices at 30 June become a question for your accountant. Are they bad debts? Should they be written off? Are they still collectible? Having visibility all year means you chase them when there is still a chance of getting paid.

Expense category audit

A monthly list of expenses that were categorised as "general", "miscellaneous", "other", or left uncategorised. Just the exceptions, not every transaction. This is a cleanup prompt: spend five minutes recategorising the outliers while you still remember what they were.

Why it matters for EOFY: miscategorised expenses inflate some categories and hide others. Your accountant will ask about them, and "I do not remember" is an expensive answer because it means they have to investigate each one.

How to set these up

Each of these reports follows the same automation pattern described in our guide to automating weekly reporting. A scheduled trigger, a data pull from your accounting platform's API, basic formatting, and email delivery.

The key tools are:

  • Your accounting software (Xero, MYOB, Zoho Books, QuickBooks). All have APIs that expose the data needed for these reports.
  • An automation platform (Make.com, Power Automate, n8n) to pull, format, and deliver the reports on a schedule.
  • A delivery channel (email, Teams, Slack) where you actually check things.

Setup time is typically a few hours for the first report, then 30 minutes for each additional report since the connection to your accounting software is already configured.

The FY27 advantage

If you set up automated reporting now, even just the monthly P&L and weekly overdue invoice report, next year's EOFY will be fundamentally different. Your data will be clean because you have been monitoring it all year. Your accountant will get organised records instead of a data dump. And you will spend June running your business instead of chasing paperwork.

The pattern holds for everything in business operations: the work is always easier when the systems are in place before you need them.

If you want help setting up automated financial reporting, or if your EOFY prep has revealed that your business systems need attention more broadly, a Systems Assessment is a free session where we look at what you are using and recommend a practical path forward.