The Month-End Close Checklist: All 20 Tasks Explained

A month-end close checklist is only useful if it is specific enough that someone other than you could run it. "Close the books" is not a task. "Reconcile the operating account against the bank statement, due 2 business days after period end" is. Here is a full twenty-task checklist, organized by category, with the reasoning behind each one.

Cash

Reconcile all bank accounts and reconcile credit card statements against the actual statements, not just a glance at the register; this is where duplicate payments, missed deposits and outright fraud tend to surface first. Count and reconcile petty cash if the business keeps any physical float. Review the undeposited funds account, since anything sitting there past a few days usually means a deposit was recorded but never actually made it to the bank, or vice versa.

Revenue

Issue and post all customer invoices for work done in the period before it closes, even if you will not get around to emailing them until later; the revenue belongs in this period regardless of when the invoice goes out. Review accounts receivable aging and chase anything materially overdue while it is still fresh. Post deferred revenue recognition entries for any payment received in advance of the work being done, so revenue lands in the period it was actually earned.

Expenses

Record all vendor bills receivedfor the period, whether or not they have been paid yet; a bill dated in the period belongs in the period's expenses regardless of payment timing. Review accounts payable aging so nothing overdue is missed. Post accrued expenses for costs incurred but not yet billed (a contractor who invoices monthly in arrears, for instance). Reconcile intercompany balances if the business operates through more than one legal entity, since these must net to zero across the group.

Payroll

Post payroll journal entriesfrom the payroll processor's reports for any pay period that fell within the month. Reconcile payroll liabilities(tax withholding, benefits deductions, employer taxes owed) against the processor's liability report, since a stopped-syncing deduction or an unremitted tax payment is exactly the kind of thing that quietly builds up in a liability account for months before anyone notices.

Assets

Record depreciation and amortization for the period. Review fixed asset additions and disposals so the fixed asset schedule matches what was actually bought or sold. Reconcile inventory, where held, to the sub-ledger or physical count. Review the prepaid expense schedule and post the portion that should now be expensed for the period.

Reporting

Review balance sheet accounts for reasonableness, account by account, not just the total; a balance that doubled or a debit balance in what should be a credit account is usually visible at a glance if someone actually looks. Run and review the profit and loss statement against budget or the prior month, looking for anything that does not have an obvious explanation. Finally, lock the period in the accounting system so closed-period transactions cannot be edited without a deliberate reopening.

Making this repeatable

• Every task needs a named owner, even in a one-person business (that just means "you, by this date").
• Every task needs a due day relative to period end, not a vague "sometime early next month."
• Sign-off matters: a record of who completed each task and when, kept somewhere durable.

You can generate this exact checklist, with your own period dates and business-day offsets, using the free close checklist generator, which builds directly from the template above. Or download the raw template from the templates hub. For the reasoning behind why these tasks have to happen in this order, see the month-end close process.