OPS-Automate Blog
A Month-End Close Checklist Your Whole Team Can Run
The difference between a firm that closes client books by the 10th and a firm still closing on the 25th is rarely talent — it's whether the close is a documented, assigned checklist or a monthly improvisation. Here's a 15-step close built for firms running multiple client files, with a clear split between production steps and review steps.
Pre-close (business days 1–2)
1. Confirm all feeds are current
Bank feeds connected, no broken connections, no gaps. A feed that silently died on the 14th is the most common reason a close blows past its deadline.
2. Chase open documents
Missing bills, unexplained deposits, loan statements. Send the client one consolidated request — not five emails across the week.
3. Clear the inbox items
Uncategorized transactions, bank rule exceptions, and anything sitting in review queues gets coded before reconciliation starts.
Core close (days 2–5)
4. Reconcile every cash and card account
Oldest month first, no plug entries, a note on every exception. If catch-up is needed, it happens before this month's close, not instead of it — see our reconciliation workflow.
5. Empty undeposited funds
Zero is the only acceptable ending balance for most clients.
6. Post payroll
Tie wages, taxes, and benefits to the payroll provider's reports. Payroll liabilities should equal the next remittance — exactly.
7. Book recurring journals
Depreciation, amortization, prepaid insurance, deferred revenue. Templates with schedules attached, not memory.
8. Accrue what's known
Received-not-billed inventory, unbilled revenue, interest. Materiality thresholds per client, in writing.
9. Work A/R and A/P aging
Flag anything over 60 days for the client conversation; clear anything that's actually been settled.
10. Reconcile balance sheet accounts on rotation
Loans and payroll liabilities monthly; smaller accounts quarterly on a documented rotation so nothing goes twelve months untouched.
Review and delivery (days 5–7)
11. Run analytical review
Month-over-month P&L with a threshold rule (say, ±15% and ±$500). Every breach gets a one-line explanation before a reviewer ever sees the file.
12. Reviewer sign-off
The CPA reviews exceptions and analytics — not every transaction. That's the whole point of steps 1–11 being done cleanly.
13. Lock the period
Closing date with password, every client, every month.
14. Deliver the reporting pack
Same format, same order, every month, so clients learn to read it.
15. Log the close
Time taken, exceptions found, items carried forward. Next month's close starts from this log.
Who runs which step
Steps 1–11 and 13–15 are production: process-driven, checklist-based, and they consume 80% of close hours. Step 12 is where the CPA belongs. Firms that split the work this way — a dedicated junior accountant running production under daily QA, partners running review — routinely pull their close date forward by a week or more. That's exactly the structure an OPS-Automate placement provides at $950/month flat, with a success manager emailing you each day's close progress against KPIs.
Put a $950/month junior accountant on your team
Full-time, dedicated, QA-checked daily, Time Doctor-tracked — with no upfront payment. Your first invoice arrives after 30 days, and you pay only if you're satisfied.
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