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General
Make an announcement to employees.
Inform your customers.
Make an announcement to the media and the government.
Check all customer contracts.
Leave contact information with former business contacts, colleagues, and employees.
Financial/Administrative
Cancel state or county permits and licenses.
Notify your creditors: suppliers, lenders, service providers, and utilities.
Ask for letters indicating that your bills are paid in full as you pay off each creditor.
Collect outstanding accounts receivable.
Settle or pay all of your business debts.
Cancel your business credit cards.
Cancel bank accounts and insurance policies.
Take care of your business leases.
File an annual return for the year you go out of business.
If you have employees file the final employment tax returns.
Issue final wage and withholding information to employees.
File final tip income and allocated tips information return.
Report capital gains or losses.
Report partner's/shareholder's shares.
File final employee pension/benefit plan.
Issue payment information to sub-contractors.
Report corporate dissolution or liquidation.
Report business asset sales.
Report the sale or exchange of property used in your trade or business.

Who it's for

This Closing a Business Checklist is for teams that want consistent execution, less rework, and clear ownership.

Standardize quality - run the same Closing a Business steps every time, regardless of who executes
Save time - reuse a proven Closing a Business workflow instead of rebuilding processes from scratch
Improve accountability - assign owners and see what's done vs. what's pending
Onboard faster - use the Closing a Business checklist as the SOP and training guide
Coordinate across roles - handoffs are clear and everyone works from the same source of truth

How to use it

How to use this Closing a Business Checklist:

Start by saving it - save as a Template if you'll reuse it, or as a Checklist if it's a one-off project.
Customize it once for your workflow - remove what doesn't apply and add your team-specific steps.
Assign ownership and execute - set owners/due dates where needed and track completion as work happens.
Reuse without rebuilding - when Closing a Business comes up again, start from your saved version and run it with clear ownership.

5 stars

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