CHECKLIST
Month-End Close Checklist
About fifty minutes to read and adapt, five working days to run. A close that takes two weeks produces numbers nobody can act on, because the month they describe has gone cold; the discipline here is one day, one layer, with each day’s work assuming the previous day is closed and not reopening it.
- Five days, fifteen checks, one layer a day
- Bank to revenue to costs to the balance sheet to the pack
- Every balance reconciled to something outside the ledger
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Who this checklist is for
Finance leads and the founders standing in for one, at companies where the close has quietly stretched to two or three weeks and every management meeting runs on last month’s weather.
Your close takes two weeks and everyone accepts it
Nobody decided it, it accreted: a few unreconciled accounts, receipts chased at month end instead of day one, accruals done from memory. The checklist unwinds it a layer at a time, and the day-five pack, P&L against budget with the variance bridge, KPIs, cash re-anchored, arrives while the month is still warm enough to manage.
Your numbers get restated a week after they are published
Restatements come from balances nobody proved. Day four is the cure: every balance sheet account reconciled to something outside the ledger, a statement, a schedule, a contract, with VAT control tying to the return and the payroll control accounts clearing to zero on payment. An account reconciled to nothing is where the surprises live.
An audit or diligence is coming
Both test the same thing: whether balances can be evidenced. A running five-day close is the machine that produces that evidence monthly, which is why the Audit Readiness Checklist’s first instruction is to fix the close first. Do it a year out and the audit becomes a review of a working system rather than an archaeology project.
FACTS
One day, one layer
Day one is bank and cash, every account. Day two is revenue and debtors, every invoice raised and the ledger tied to control. Day three is costs and payroll, accruals posted and control accounts clearing. Day four is the balance sheet proving itself. Day five is the pack, with commentary written the same day, not the night before the board.
15 checks
Five days, one layer each
Day 5
The pack out, while the month is warm
FACTS
A fast close is a symptom, not a trick
Day five is only possible because of what happens during the month: invoices raised weekly, receipts chased the day they are missing, ledgers kept reconciled as they move. The checklist ends with ten minutes on the close itself, what was late and what gets fixed in the process, because a two-week close is a symptom too.