Month-end close checklist

This is sized for a team of one to five. The timings assume a ten-working-day close; compress them, don't reorder them. Every task has one owner and one date — if a task has two owners, it has none.

Before the period ends (day −2 to 0)

• Confirm the cut-off date and publish it to the business — the single most effective control you have.
• Freeze new purchase orders and non-essential supplier invoices.
• Chase approvals on anything sitting unapproved in the AP queue.
• Confirm payroll is finalised and the journal is ready to post.
• Check last month's close notes for anything that was deferred deliberately.

Days 1–2 · Cut off and accrue

• Import all bank feeds and reconcile transaction counts to the statement.
• Post revenue for the period and check cut-off on the last few days — this is where revenue is most often misstated.
• Accrue for goods and services received but not invoiced. Ask for the list; don't estimate it from last month.
• Post prepayments and the related amortisation, plus accrued income where relevant.
• Run the duplicate invoice check over the approved list before payment selection.

Days 3–4 · Reconcile the sub-ledgers

• Bank reconciliations for every account, including the ones you never touch.
• AR sub-ledger to the AR control account, at the transaction level, not just the total.
• AP sub-ledger to the AP control account.
• Intercompany balances — both sides must agree before you can eliminate them.
• Inventory and COGS, if you hold stock: quantity and value, not just value.

Days 5–7 · Balance sheet and adjustments

• Reconcile every remaining balance sheet account. Unexplained balances are how errors survive for years.
• Review the fixed asset register: additions, disposals, depreciation.
• Foreign currency revaluation on monetary balances at the closing rate.
• Tax: VAT/GST return reconciled to the ledger, and any deferred tax movement.
• Provisions and accruals reviewed against the prior month — a stale accrual is an error waiting to be found.

Days 8–10 · Review and report

• Flux analysis: every P&L line against prior month and budget, with an explanation for anything over your threshold.
• Bad debt review against the aged receivables, with any specific provisions identified by customer.
• Draft the management pack, including cash and the AR aging.
• Controller sign-off on the trial balance, then lock the period.
• Write the close notes: what broke, what to fix, what's deferred.

What a close checklist should contain

For every line: the task, the owner, the due date relative to period end, the evidence produced (the reconciliation file, the sign-off), and the dependency. Dependencies are what make a checklist a schedule — the bank reconciliation can't start until the feeds are imported, and the flux analysis can't start until the P&L is final.

Keep the tasks relative to period end (day 3, day 5) rather than calendar dates. Then the same checklist works in February and in December, and you can generate next month's dates from a single period-end value.

Where closes actually slip

• No owner per task. Everything is everyone's, so it's done late.
• Waiting on one person. If the whole close queues behind the controller, the schedule is fiction. Give the preparer authority to finish and the reviewer only a sign-off role.
• Reconciliations done at total level. A reconciliation that agrees to the penny at the total but has never been looked at line by line isn't a reconciliation.
• Close tasks rolling forward silently. If day 3 tasks routinely happen on day 6, either fix the schedule or fix the workload — don't leave it written down wrong.
• No cut-off. Without a published cut-off, late invoices and late revenue land in the wrong period and the close never converges.