Month-end doesn’t have to be a scramble. The goal is simple: get clean, decision-ready numbers you can trust. That means a repeatable routine, clear owners, and a finish line everyone recognizes. Here’s a practical checklist you can run without adding headcount—or losing your weekend.
1) Reconcile first, then review
Start with the sources of truth: bank, credit card, merchant processors, and petty cash. Reconcile each statement to the ledger and document any timing differences (deposits in transit, outstanding checks). Once balances tie out, spot-check unusual transactions—new vendors, round-dollar amounts, or refunds—and leave review notes so the trail is obvious to anyone who follows you next month. The IRS’s recordkeeping guidance is blunt about why this matters: your books should summarize transactions and retain support (invoices, receipts, bank slips) sufficient to substantiate income, deductions, and credits—exactly what thorough reconciliations produce.
2) Close the loop on AR/AP and payroll
Don’t let old open items muddy your margins. Match cash receipts to invoices, write off the uncollectible with a clear policy threshold, and attach support (emails, signed POs) where you can. On the payables side, capture all bills received, accrue what hasn’t arrived, and confirm that approvals happened before payment. For payroll, reconcile gross-to-net and post the month’s accrual for any unpaid wages or PTO. If capacity is your bottleneck, delegating parts of small business bookkeeping can keep your close cadence predictable without pausing operations.
3) Post the adjustments that make statements real
Prepaids, accruals, depreciation, and deferred revenue are the difference between “cash noise” and financials leadership can rely on. Keep a lightweight workbook with four tabs—prepaids, accruals, fixed assets, and deferrals—so each entry has support plus a reversal plan next month. Then generate your P&L, balance sheet, and cash flow and compare them to last month and the same month last year. A brief analytical review surfaces issues faster than a line-by-line hunt and makes variance explanations easier to write. If your AR aging suddenly stretches or “miscellaneous expense” balloons, chase it down before you lock the period.
One practical pattern: amortize prepaid insurance monthly (e.g., $6,000 for a 12-month policy → $500/month expense), accrue utilities you’ve used but haven’t been invoiced for yet, and set a simple capitalization threshold (say, $1,000) so new laptops hit the fixed-asset schedule and start depreciating next month. For recurring deferrals—annual SaaS, support agreements—drop a reminder on your close checklist to confirm remaining balances. These small, consistent adjustments keep margins believable and make your budget-to-actuals worth discussing.
4) Lock the period with basic controls (they’re not just for big companies)
Even a two-person shop can apply lightweight internal controls: one person prepares, another reviews; checklists are dated and signed; sensitive changes (like vendor master edits) are reviewed monthly. It’s not bureaucracy—it’s proof you did the right work. The U.S. Government Accountability Office’s “Green Book” frames documentation, segregation of duties, and oversight as core internal control principles that improve reliability of reporting and compliance—concepts that translate cleanly to small-business routines.
Bottom line: A consistent month-end routine—reconcile, clear AR/AP, post adjustments, then review—gives you numbers you can act on and a process you can hand off as you grow.
