Year-End Business Review: The Good, The Bad, and The Surprises 

A simple 3-part framework we use with clients to help small business owners reflect on the past year and make smarter decisions in the one ahead.

Are you sitting here in late December thinking, “Wow, the year just… happened, and now it’s almost gone”?

Maybe you hit some goals, missed others, put out fires, and now you're staring at 2026 wondering: Did we really make progress? Or did we just survive another 365 days?

Most business owners are so busy moving forward that they never stop to look back. And without that reflection, every year starts to feel the same.

At Patrick Accounting, we've helped hundreds of business owners move from "I think we did ok" to "Here's exactly where we grew, where we struggled, and what surprised us." After working through our own year-end review, we realized this same three-part framework can help our clients actually move forward.

In this article, you’ll learn how to review your year through three simple lenses: The Good, The Bad, and The Surprises, so you can make smarter decisions, challenge your assumptions, and enter 2026 with confidence and clarity.

Why Business Owners Can't Afford to Skip the Year-End Review

There's this constant pressure to keep moving forward. Looking back can feel like wasted time when there's so much ahead.

But if you never take time to measure progress, you'll always feel like you're behind, even if you're actually ahead.

When you don’t stop to assess what worked and what didn’t, you carry bad assumptions and broken systems into another year. That leads to missed growth, repeated mistakes, and plans based on wishful thinking instead of real data.

In his book, "The Gap and The Gain," Dan Sullivan offers some valuable perspective on this and does a great job of outlining two ways to measure progress: 

• The Gap is where you compare yourself to an ideal future and always fall short.
• The Gain is where you measure against your starting point, so you can see real progress and momentum.

When you compare where you are now to where you were in January, you'll likely see more progress than you give yourself credit for. But you have to stop and look.

Reflection is a strategic growth move. If you want to compound wins in your business, you need to pause, learn, and adjust.

The Good: What Actually Worked This Year

Let's start with the wins. Not just revenue goals, but progress that moves your business forward.

1. Clarity and Alignment That Changed Everything

Did you gain clarity on something that was fuzzy before?

For us at Patrick Accounting, 2025 was the year we finally aligned our expectations with the service we're providing. After 20 years, we got clear on what our client journey looks like—what winning means at every stage.

Our firm conference this year was our best ever because we unveiled this framework with our team. People we expected to be hesitant were actually the most excited.

And when your team embraces structure and clarity, that's a massive win.

Your version might be finally documenting a process, clarifying roles, or understanding your financials well enough to make confident decisions. 

2. People and Leadership Growth That Strengthened the Business

Did someone step up? Did a new hire exceed expectations? Did you have a tough conversation that led to improvement?

We made an intentional focus on developing our people this year. Our leaders developed tremendously. They're learning to lead their own teams with more empathy, and their passion for what we're doing continues to blossom.

We also got better at having direct, honest feedback conversations with our team. When we stopped avoiding those conversations, we saw dramatic improvements.

If your team is stronger at the end of the year than they were at the beginning, that’s real progress.

People wins matter just as much as revenue wins. 

Your version might be successfully delegating something you thought only you could do, watching a team member grow into leadership, or building a hiring process that brings in the right people.

3. Operational Fixes That Freed Up Time

What runs smoother now than it did in January?

Maybe you eliminated a bottleneck, automated something tedious, or fixed a scheduling nightmare.

Systems that work better = a business that's easier to run. Even small operational improvements compound over time.

4. Organizational Maturity Milestones That Proved We’re Moving Forward

What threshold did you cross this year?

For us, hitting 50 employees represented organizational maturity we'd never reached before, including people in brand new roles that didn’t exist a year ago.

We also made Inc. 5000 for the 7th year in a row, were honored as a Best Place to Work nationally and in Memphis, had our biggest year ever for payroll clients, purchased another accounting firm, and bought a building that gives us room to grow.

Your version might be crossing $1 million in revenue, opening a second location, earning a certification, or paying off major debt.

These milestones show you're building something that lasts.

5. Foundational Work and Investments That Started Paying Off

The investments we made in previous years, such as marketing, communication systems, training, and development finally started bearing fruit this year. The momentum from those foundations created things to build upon.

Sometimes the best wins are when past work pays off in the present.

👟 Action Step: Take 15 minutes right now. Open a blank document and list 10 things that went well this year. Not things that went "kind of ok," but things that actually went well. This isn't bragging. It's how you see what’s working and decide what to double down on in 2026.

The Bad: What Didn't Go According to Plan

Every business has setbacks. The question is whether you learned from them. This is how ours played out this year and what we learned.

1. Marketing That Didn’t Convert Like We Expected

We had big goals around attracting the right clients and getting more appointments. While we had a great year growth-wise, we're still figuring out how to get in front of the right people.

We also tried a free benefits reconciliation offer—something we genuinely believed would be valuable. We were convinced people would jump at it. The actual result? Exactly two takers. For the record, it really is valuable if you’d like to check it out. 🙂

The lesson: Just because something is valuable doesn't mean people will automatically want it. Marketing is about meeting people where they are, not where you think they should be.

2. Trying to Do Too Much at Once Backfired

We have a tendency to bite off more than we can chew. We invested in sales coaching, and the coaching was solid, but we struggled to implement what we learned.

No matter how much we tried, we just couldn't get everything done. We overcommitted to too many things at once.

The lesson: It's not about having more ideas or training. It's about picking fewer things and actually finishing them.

3. Unfinished Projects and Scope Creep Cost Us

We had automation projects that hit 90%... and stalled. Sometimes it was because of technology limitations. Other times, it was because we'd uncover problems that turned into bigger projects.

Think of it like replacing one board and realizing you need to tear out the whole wall. We didn’t always reallocate resources fast enough to match the new reality.

The lesson: If you have projects stuck at 90%, either finish them in Q1 or kill them. Limbo is expensive.

4. Expensive Leadership Training Missed the Mark

We spent significant money on a leadership conference with an outside vendor. The vendor was great, but the message didn’t land with our team the way we had hoped.

The lesson: Sometimes you're better off investing time and effort to build something yourself that fits your culture perfectly.

👟 Action Step: Write down 3-5 things that didn't go as planned or didn’t work. For each one, answer:

• "What did this actually cost us?" (Time? Money? Opportunity? Morale?)
• Then ask: “What would we do differently if we faced this same issue in 2026?”

The Surprises: What You Didn’t See Coming

These surprises challenged our assumptions about how our business actually works.

1. Your Team Wants Ownership, Not Handholding

At our firm conference, multiple people said: "Trust us more. Give us things at 80% finished. Let us figure it out."

We thought we were protecting them by giving them fully buttoned-up, 100% complete ideas. Turns out, we were wrong, and that approach slowed us down. Our team wanted to tinker, play with ideas, and figure stuff out themselves. We were the bottleneck, not them.

Your team might be more capable than you're giving them credit for.

Ask yourself: “Where might you be over-engineering decisions your team could own?” 

2. Tough Conversations Made People Better

We avoided direct performance conversations for years, afraid we'd hurt feelings or cause people to quit. But when we finally had those conversations—with a framework for giving feedback in a loving, direct way—people got dramatically better.

👉🏼 Check out our free Performance Management Toolkit from our sister company, Whirks.

High-performers want to know where they stand. The fear of uncomfortable conversations is almost always worse than the actual conversations.

3. People Can Handle Change Better Than You Think

We assumed big changes would overwhelm our team, so we slow-rolled them or tried to soften the impact.

But in 2025, our team asked for more change, not less. They were ready, eager, and even energized by it. The resistance to change wasn’t coming from our team, it was coming from us.

Ask yourself: "What changes are you hesitating on because you think your team isn’t ready?"

👟 Action Step: What surprised you this year? Write down 2-3 things you didn't expect—good or bad. Then ask:

• "What does this tell me about my assumptions going into 2026?"
• “Where am I limiting others based on fear or habit?”

3 Steps to Turn Your Year-End Review Into Real Business Strategy

Reflection without action doesn't really do you much good. Here's how to make it count:

1. Schedule Your Reflection Time

Block 90 minutes before year-end (or in the first half of January if you need to). Bring your leadership team if you have one. No interruptions. If you don't schedule it, it won't happen.

2. Use the Three-Category Framework

• The Good: List at least 10 wins. Include clarity, people development, operational improvements, and milestones.
• The Bad: List 3-5 things that didn't work. Be honest about what flopped, what you overcommitted to, and what drained resources.
• The Surprises: List 2-3 unexpected things that challenged your assumptions about your team, your systems, or yourself.

3. Extract Your 2026 Priorities:

• From The Good: What do you double down on?
• From The Bad: What do you stop doing or fix?
• From The Surprises: What assumptions do you challenge?

This is where reflection becomes strategy. The point isn't to just look back at what happened, but to take action on what you're going to do differently because of it.

Reflection Without Action is Just Nostalgia

Year-end reviews aren't about beating yourself up for what didn't happen. They're about recognizing progress, learning from mistakes, and building momentum for what's next.

You came here looking for a way to make sense of your year—to see if you truly moved forward or just ran in place. Without stopping to measure progress, you'll always feel behind, even when you're actually winning. 

If you want your business to thrive, you need to build reflection time into your rhythm and use it to plan smarter, lead better, and grow with clarity.

At Patrick Accounting, we've worked through this same three-part process, both for ourselves and with hundreds of our clients. Some years you grow in revenue. Other years you grow in clarity, systems, or people.

All of it counts. All of it matters.

If you're ready to enter 2026 with a clearer picture of where your business stands and where it’s going, we'd love to help.

Whether you need better financials, a strategic partner to help map the road ahead, or just someone who understands the journey, we're here for it. And we’re here for you.

Read "What It Means to Thrive in Business and How to Get There" to define what success really looks like in 2026, and how working with the right partner can help you build toward it.

Or reach out directly. We'd love to hear your 2025 story and help you make 2026 your best year yet.

Let's get one step better together.