The Month-End Close Checklist, Grouped by Day and by Owner

Most closes in a 10 to 75 person company do not fail because someone does not know how to reconcile a bank account. They fail because three people each assumed a fourth person was handling deferred revenue, and nobody found out until the bank asked for statements in March.

The fix is boring and it works: put every task on a specific day, give every task exactly one owner, and define what “done” looks like before the month starts. What follows is the calendar in the form we hand to a client on day one of an engagement. Copy it, cut what does not apply, and put the owner names in.

What this calendar assumes

Assumption	If it is not true
Bank feeds are connected and categorized weekly, not monthly	Add two days to the front of the calendar for the first three months
Payroll is run by a service bureau or software, not by hand	Add a manual payroll journal step on Day 2
AP is entered on receipt, not on payment	Your accrual work on Day 5 doubles
There is one legal entity	See the consolidation walkthrough, which runs on a longer clock
Reporting basis is ASPE or IFRS, and that choice is written down somewhere	Settle it before you build a calendar around it

“Day 1” below means the first business day of the new month. Day counts are business days.

Roles, and the one-owner rule

Every line item has exactly one owner. A shared task is an unowned task.

Role	Typical person in a 10 to 75 person company	Owns
Preparer	Bookkeeper, internal or external	Capture, coding, sub-ledger reconciliations, first-pass accruals
Coordinator	Office manager or operations lead	Cut-off enforcement, chasing source documents, payroll and benefit inputs, the PBC-style chase list
Reviewer	Fractional controller or finance lead	Judgment entries, balance sheet review, variance commentary, sign-off
Approver	Owner, GM or CEO	Reads the package, approves the reporting, approves anything outside delegated authority

The Reviewer never prepares what the Reviewer reviews. In a small company that is the single hardest control to hold, and it is the one that matters most.

The close calendar at a glance

Day	Block	Primary owner	Output
Day -3 to Day 0	Pre-close	Coordinator	Cut-off notices sent, expense reports in, timesheets locked
Day 1 to Day 2	Capture	Preparer	All source data in the ledger, sub-ledgers agreed to control accounts
Day 3 to Day 4	Reconcile	Preparer	Every balance sheet account tied to evidence
Day 5	Accruals and judgment	Reviewer	Adjusting entries posted, revenue cut-off settled
Day 6	Review	Reviewer	Balance sheet review complete, variance commentary drafted
Day 7	Report and lock	Reviewer, then Approver	Package issued, period locked
Day 8	Carry-forward	Preparer	Next month’s open items, recurring entry register updated

Day -3 to Day 0: pre-close

This block happens before month end. It is the cheapest block in the calendar and the one most often skipped.

1. Coordinator sends the cut-off notice to the whole company. Expense reports, mileage logs, corporate card receipts and contractor invoices due by Day 1, no exceptions, with the date in the subject line.
2. Coordinator confirms the payroll calendar for the month, including any off-cycle runs, bonuses or vacation payouts, so the Preparer is not surprised on Day 2.
3. Preparer clears the uncategorized transaction queue to zero. Anything genuinely unknown goes to a suspense account with a note naming who was asked and when.
4. Coordinator locks timesheets and job costing entries if the company bills time or runs projects.
5. Preparer confirms every bank, credit card and merchant processor account still has a live feed. A dead feed discovered on Day 3 costs a day.

Day 1 to Day 2: capture

Goal: everything that belongs in the month is in the ledger, in the right month, before anybody starts reconciling.

1. Preparer posts the final AP batch for the month, including anything received after month end that relates to services delivered before it.
2. Preparer posts the payroll journal and agrees it to the payroll provider’s register: gross pay, employer contributions, source deduction remittance, vacation accrual movement, and any provincial payroll levies your company is subject to.
3. Preparer posts revenue invoices and confirms the AR sub-ledger agrees to the AR control account. Difference of zero, or a documented reason.
4. Preparer agrees the AP sub-ledger to the AP control account on the same basis.
5. Preparer posts merchant processor and payment platform settlements, splitting gross sales, processor fees and the timing difference into the clearing account rather than netting them into revenue.
6. Coordinator delivers the last of the expense reports and flags anything a manager has not approved.
7. Preparer posts inventory movements and any month-end count adjustment if the company holds stock.

At the end of Day 2, the Preparer produces a one-page open items list. That list is the working agenda for the rest of the close.

Day 3 to Day 4: reconcile

Every balance sheet account gets one of three states: reconciled to external evidence, reconciled to an internal schedule, or explicitly accepted as immaterial with a note. Nothing is left unstated.

Account	Reconciled to	Evidence kept in the binder
Operating bank	Bank statement	Reconciliation report, statement PDF, list of outstanding items with dates
Credit cards	Card statement	Reconciliation report, statement PDF, unmatched receipts list
Merchant and payment clearing	Processor settlement report	Settlement report, aged list of items in the clearing account
Accounts receivable	AR aged listing	Aged listing, notes on anything past the normal terms
Accounts payable	AP aged listing	Aged listing, notes on anything unusually old
Prepaid expenses	Amortization schedule	Schedule showing opening, additions, amortization, closing
Inventory	Count sheet or perpetual listing	Count sheets, variance explanation, costing basis note
Capital assets	Fixed asset continuity schedule	Schedule with additions, disposals, depreciation, and invoices for additions
Sales tax payable	Sales tax detail report	Detail report agreed to the ledger balance, plus a note of any prior period adjustment
Payroll liabilities	Payroll provider register	Register, remittance confirmations, vacation and benefit accrual schedules
Deferred revenue	Contract or deposit schedule	Schedule by customer showing opening, billings, recognition, closing
Loans and leases	Lender amortization schedule	Schedule showing principal and interest split
Shareholder and related party accounts	Standalone schedule	Every movement listed with a description, not a lump sum
Suspense and clearing	Should be nil	If not nil, a list of every item with an owner and a date

Two rules make this block honest. First, a reconciliation is not done when the difference is small, it is done when the difference is explained. Second, an aged item in a clearing account is a defect, not a balance. Clearing accounts that carry the same three items for six months are how small errors become large ones.

Day 5: accruals and the judgment calls

This is the Reviewer’s day. Everything here involves a decision, which is why it does not belong to the Preparer.

1. Revenue cut-off. For each significant contract, confirm the amount recognized reflects what was actually delivered in the month. Under IFRS this is the performance obligation analysis in IFRS 15. Under ASPE it is the revenue recognition criteria in Section 3400. Either way, the practical question is the same: did we earn it, or did we just invoice it?
2. Deferred revenue movement. Deposits, retainers, annual plans billed up front and multi-month projects all move here. The schedule ties to the ledger or the close does not proceed.
3. Unbilled revenue. Work delivered and not yet invoiced is an accrual, not a rounding difference. If your operations team tracks it, use their number and reconcile it.
4. Expense accruals. Anything consumed and not yet invoiced: contractor work, professional fees, utilities, commissions earned in the month, bonus accrual to date.
5. Leases. If you report under IFRS 16, post the right-of-use asset depreciation and the lease liability interest and payment split from the lease schedule. Under ASPE, apply the capital versus operating lease classification you documented when the lease started and keep the classification consistent.
6. Foreign exchange. Revalue foreign currency monetary balances at the month-end rate, post the unrealized gain or loss to its own account, and keep realized and unrealized separate so nobody argues about it later.
7. Intercompany. If there is a second entity, intercompany balances must agree between the two ledgers before anything else proceeds.
8. Recurring entry register. Confirm every entry on the standing register was posted and that no entry was posted twice. A recurring entry posted twice is the single most common close error we find in a new file.

Day 6: review

The Reviewer works from the balance sheet, not the income statement. A balance sheet that is right forces an income statement that is right.

1. Compare every balance sheet account to prior month and prior year end. Explain anything that moved more than your review threshold, in a sentence, in the file.
2. Read the general ledger detail for the month for any account that is not routine, and for the shareholder account in full.
3. Scan every journal entry posted in the month. Manual entries with round numbers, entries posted on the last day of the month, and entries with a blank description are the three to read first.
4. Run the income statement against budget or against the prior year and draft the variance commentary. Commentary explains causes, not amounts. “Gross margin fell 4 points because two projects absorbed unbudgeted subcontractor hours” is commentary. “Gross margin fell 4 points” is a caption.
5. Confirm the cash flow picture agrees with the bank. If net income is strong and cash fell, the reason belongs in the commentary before the owner asks.

Day 7: report and lock

1. Reviewer issues the package: balance sheet, income statement with comparatives, cash summary, AR and AP aging, and one page of commentary. Comparatives are not optional. A single-column statement cannot be reviewed.
2. Approver reads it and signs off, or asks questions that are answered before the lock.
3. Reviewer locks the period in the accounting system and records the lock date.
4. Any entry after the lock requires a written reason and re-issued statements. This is the rule that makes the reported number mean something.

The close binder

One folder per month, named by period, with a fixed subfolder structure so anyone can find anything without asking. At minimum: trial balance as at the lock date, every reconciliation with its supporting statement, every schedule, the journal entry listing, the issued package, and the sign-off. When a review engagement or a financing request arrives later, this binder is most of the answer already.

Materiality, and what we deliberately do not chase

Set a review threshold at the start of the year and write it down. Below the threshold, a difference is accepted with a note and cleared at year end. Above it, the difference gets worked. Without a written threshold, either everything gets chased and the close takes three weeks, or nothing gets chased and the threshold is whatever the tired person decided at 6pm.

The threshold is a management decision, and it is not the same as the materiality a practitioner sets for a review or audit engagement. Keep them separate and do not assume yours is acceptable to theirs.

The five failure modes we see most

Failure mode	What it looks like	The fix in this calendar
Cut-off drift	Expense reports arrive on Day 6	Day -3 notice, hard Day 1 door
Clearing account creep	The same unmatched items every month	Day 3 aged item list with an owner and a date
Duplicate recurring entries	Depreciation posted twice in a month	Day 5 recurring entry register check
Reviewer as preparer	The same person books and blesses the accrual	Roles table, enforced
The reopened month	Statements changed after issue with no trail	Day 7 lock and the written-reason rule

Adapting this to your size

At 10 to 20 people, the Coordinator and Preparer are often the same person and the calendar compresses to five days. At 50 to 75 people with multiple locations or projects, Day 3 to Day 4 usually needs a third day and the variance commentary becomes the longest part of the package. What does not change at any size is the sequence: capture, then reconcile, then judge, then review, then lock. Closes go wrong when judgment happens before reconciliation, because then the judgment is being applied to numbers that are still moving.