Good Month End Checklist Template in PDF, Excel or Word Download It Now for Free

Our cloud software automates critical finance and accounting processes. We empower companies of all sizes across all industries to improve the integrity of their financial reporting, achieve efficiencies and enhance real-time visibility into their operations. So on that note, we have a few critical best practices that can help ensure  your monthly close process is streamlined, quick, and endlessly reliable.

Calendar systems like ClickUp, CoSchedule, or Monday.com give all necessary teams visibility into what the marketing team needs regarding vendors for upcoming events or collateral for product launches and announcements. The calendar serves as a timeline for confirmations and setting budget expectations, which can be accounted for as you approach your month-end close or forecast future closes. He is a senior financial services executive who has specialized in all aspects of the Order-to-Cash and back-office processes. He has managed several very large global A/R portfolios for major Fortune 100 and 500 high-growth companies in various stages of delivery and transition, as well as small companies in startup and growth mode. Your ERP system should be capable of providing aged payables and aged receivables reports as of the end of the month. During the bank reconciliation process, you can also post interest income, bank fees, or other adjustments that impact your cash balances.

Improves Results From Accurate Reporting

More importantly, staying on top of your financial data will help you achieve your long-term business goals. At the end of the month, founders and accountants must run through a step-by-step workflow to complete tie-outs and journal entries, and ensure all transactions that month are recorded accurately. As CEO and Co-Founder, Mike leads FloQast’s corporate vision, strategy and execution. Prior to founding FloQast, he managed the accounting team at Cornerstone OnDemand, a SaaS company in Los Angeles.

• If an app, bank feed, or another part of your accounting procedures isn’t working correctly, it’s vastly easier to straighten out the problem when you catch it early.
• If tax work is overwhelming, we offer tax preparation and tax filing services as well.
• Streamline and automate activities in SAP with task scheduling and execution, activity monitoring, and outcome verification.
• What if you could take it to the next level and manage your checklist with technology?
• Document any loans that have been taken out for the business and their payment progression.

Review all manual and automated data flows related to revenue recognition and commissions. Test for validity and conduct preliminary walkthroughs with your team to ensure the information makes sense and is consistent across reports. But if you don’t see your business having an accounting department soon, you can outsource your finance work to professionals.

Reconcile accrued and prepaid accounts

But trying to chase down updates in Slack messages, via email, or in person can slow you down. Business partners are no longer content with long reporting cycles—they want faster insights from financial information. And you get faster insights by automating tedious, time-consuming tasks. Business owners can’t forecast the future until they know the actuals from the prior period.

Working capital, cash flows, collections opportunities, and other critical metrics depend on timely and accurate processes. Ensure services revenue has been accurately recorded and related payments are reflected properly on the balance sheet. A month-end closing process should generally include the same steps each month. However, manually integrating data from different departments can present new challenges each time.

What Is the Month-End Close Process?

Lean on these teams to set the timeline for overall review, including checking automated figures. While reviewers are noted throughout the process, Vasco schedules an overall review of the report around Day Six to account for any potential inaccuracies. The business ledger and financial statements like P&L statement and balance sheet are the big deliverables for the closing period.

Doing so can streamline your processes and save hours of intensive work. Very often, those types of purchases are erroneously posted to expense accounts when you process invoices, so you need to reclassify them to the fixed assets account in GL. This is a good time to review purchases for such exceptions and handle them proactively. Whether your checklist is automated sell you out or manual, evaluating roles and responsibilities on a regular basis can prepare your teams for inevitable change. If you have a handle on who is responsible for what, and when key tasks are being performed, re-allocating and re-assessing becomes a much quicker exercise. A month-end close checklist is critical to ensuring a smooth and successful close process.

steps to complete the month-end close process

Vena automates time-consuming financial close processes, e.g., data collection, account reconciliation and inter-company transactions. End-of-month checklists reduce the time it takes to organize and submit internal financial reports. A well-thought-out to-do list keeps accountants and management on the same page when it comes to receiving financial reports. This month-end close checklist outlines not only the transactions, but also the growth of the company for each period. Use our month end closing checklist to streamline your closing procedures. By analyzing your numbers and implementing learnings, you can drive your business to success.

Businesses that put off monthly closing, or worse, leave year-end closing until the very last minute, have to prepare massive reports within tight deadlines. You’re constantly chasing all of the documentation from the entire year with little time or energy to spare. Automating your procurement process with accounting systems like Accrualify streamlines organizing your accruals and accounts payable and promotes enhanced transparency and efficiency. Department heads know what tools and systems they need to be successful–and these tools and systems can be changed or updated between month-end closes. If finance and accounting miss out on conversations with department leaders over these updates, they end up with holes in the numbers.

Other departments and providers may not understand the need for timely information. This post is to be used for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, business, or tax advice. Each person should consult his or her own attorney, business advisor, or tax advisor with respect to matters referenced in this post.

Companies that are considering going public may want to adopt GAAP-basis accounting and begin the cadence of a monthly close, even if their current investors don’t require GAAP financials. One of the great things about checklists like Month End task list is that they are easy to create or click on the download Month End to do list template in pdf button on this page to get your free Month End task list template. First and foremost, our goal is for you to integrate our Accounting Month-End Close Checklist into your own processes. After all, an in-depth, far-reaching checklist is, in fact, the most critical best practice you can have for developing effective month-end close procedures. Once you have entered, recorded, and reconciled all of these financials, you should run a monthly Profit & Loss statement and a month-end balance sheet.