A month-end close checklist you can finish

Small businesses often skip the close entirely and read live figures that keep changing beneath them. Last month's profit shifts every time an old receipt gets uploaded, so nobody trusts the report and nobody acts on it. A close fixes the numbers in place.

The checklist

• Import and reconcile every bank and card account to the statement closing balance.
• Clear the document intake queue — confirm or reject every pending draft.
• Record accruals for costs incurred but not yet invoiced to you.
• Record prepayments for anything paid in advance that belongs to later months.
• Run depreciation in line with your capitalisation policy.
• Charge loan interest and check repayments split correctly between principal and interest.
• Review receivables and payables ageing; chase anything past 60 days.
• Check inventory and cost of sales if you hold stock.
• Clear the exceptions list, or note why each remaining item is acceptable.
• Review the trial balance for anything sitting in suspense or in an account with no business reason to move.
• Lock the period, then issue the pack: profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow and notes.

What locking buys you

Once a period is locked, a late document cannot rewrite a month you already reported. It posts to the current period instead, where it is visible and explainable. That is the difference between books that drift and books you can quote to a bank.

Let the system tell you where you are

In theGL the checklist is not a printout — the Close screen derives it from your books each month. Unmatched bank lines, uploads still waiting for confirmation, open control flags, receivables past sixty days, a depreciation policy with no depreciation entry, a loan with no interest charged, a trial balance that does not balance: each shows its real state with a link straight to the screen that clears it. Accruals, prepayments and inventory stay as manual ticks, because those are judgement, not data. Nothing blocks the lock; open items simply follow you into next month.

The bank side of the close has enough detail to deserve its own list — outstanding deposits, unpresented cheques, card settlements, transfers and FX. That is covered in the companion article, “The month-end banking close checklist”.

Then actually read the pack

Compare this month to last on three lines: gross margin, operating cash and the receivables balance. Those three catch most problems while they are still small — pricing slipping, cash tightening, customers stretching. Five minutes of reading is what makes the close worth doing.