The Month-End Close Checklist for Bookkeepers (31 Steps)

Practice Runbook · updated 2026-09-22

Most month-end close checklists you find online were written for a finance department with four people in it. This one is written for a bookkeeper closing eleven sets of books alone, in the same week, while three clients are still late with their records.

The close is not hard. It is just long, and the failure mode is never "I didn't know how to reconcile the bank" — it is "I closed the period and only later noticed the suspense account still had £340 in it." A checklist exists to make that impossible, not to teach you accounting.

Below is the sequence, grouped by area. The order matters: every section depends on the ones above it, and doing them out of order is what produces the rework.

Before you start: the cut-off

Nothing else on this list is safe until the period is actually closed to new entries. If the client is still posting into the month you are closing, you are reconciling a moving target.

1. Confirm the client has finished entering for the period.
2. Lock the period in the software, or set the closing date password.
3. Check that no journals are dated after the lock date but before today.

Bank and cash (steps 1–5)

Always first. The bank is the only account in the ledger whose truth is independently verifiable, so everything else is reconciled against a foundation you have already proved.

• Import and categorise all bank transactions to the period end.
• Reconcile every bank account to the closing statement balance.
• Reconcile credit cards and any merchant accounts (Stripe, PayPal, Square).
• Review uncleared items older than 60 days — stale cheques and duplicates live here.
• Reconcile petty cash if the client runs one.

The single most useful habit: review the uncleared list every month rather than once a year. A 90-day-old uncleared payment is almost always a double entry or a transaction that never happened.

Sales and receivables (steps 6–10)

• All invoices for the period raised and posted.
• Aged receivables reviewed; anything over 90 days flagged to the client.
• Customer deposits and prepayments sitting in the right liability account.
• Credit notes applied, not left floating unallocated.
• Deferred or unearned revenue adjusted if the client bills ahead.

Purchases and payables (steps 11–15)

• All supplier bills entered, including the ones still in the client's inbox.
• Aged payables reviewed for duplicates — same amount, same supplier, two entries.
• Accruals posted for goods or services received but not yet invoiced.
• Prepayments released for the portion of the period consumed.
• Supplier statements reconciled for the two or three largest suppliers.

Payroll (steps 16–19)

• Payroll journal posted and agreed to the payroll report, not typed from memory.
• PAYE, NI or local equivalents reconciled to the liability account.
• Pension contributions posted and the control account cleared.
• Directors' or owners' drawings posted to the correct account, not to wages.

VAT and sales tax (steps 20–23)

• VAT control account reconciled to the return for the period.
• Return filed, or the filing date noted with who is responsible.
• Payment scheduled or confirmed.
• Any partial-exemption or flat-rate adjustment calculated and posted.

Balance sheet review (steps 24–28)

This is the section most solo bookkeepers skip when the week is tight, and it is the section that catches the errors the client will eventually ask about.

• Every balance sheet account has a supporting schedule or a reason.
• Suspense and clearing accounts are zero. Not "small". Zero.
• Fixed assets: additions posted, depreciation run for the period.
• Loans and finance agreements agreed to the lender statement.
• Intercompany or director loan accounts agreed both ways.

Final review and hand-off (steps 29–31)

• Compare P&L to the prior month and to the same month last year; investigate anything that moved more than your threshold.
• Produce the client pack and write the two or three sentences that explain what changed.
• Lock the period, record the close date, and note who closed it.

How to actually use it

A checklist you read is worthless; a checklist you tick is a control. Three rules make the difference:

1. Track it per client, per month. One shared list across eleven clients tells you nothing about which client is half-closed.
2. Record who did it and when. Not for blame — for the moment nine months later when someone asks whether the VAT return was reviewed before filing.
3. Let it be incomplete on purpose. A step marked "N/A — client has no payroll" is information. A step left blank is a question.

If you want the sequence as a printable card, the download below is the same 31 steps on a single page with space for client, period and sign-off. If you want it tracked across every client with a completion percentage that updates itself, that is what the workbook in the full kit does.