A Basic Month-End Close Checklist Every Business Should Use

By John Charette, CPA, CMA – Owner & Your CFO at Phoenix CFO Solutions

Month-end close doesn’t fall apart because business owners don’t care. It falls apart because they don’t know where to start.

Without a checklist, close turns into guesswork. Things get done out of order. Important steps get skipped. Numbers come together late, or worse, look finished but aren’t reliable. That’s not a discipline problem. It’s a process problem.

A basic close checklist gives you structure. It creates a clear, repeatable path you can follow every month. You can hand it to a partner, a bookkeeper, or use it yourself if you’re DIY’ing the books. Either way, it removes ambiguity and replaces it with order.

In this post, you’ll learn how to build a simple month-end close checklist you can copy, paste, and adapt for your business.

Start the Close by Locking Down the Bank and Credit Cards

The first step in any close should always be the bank and credit cards.

These accounts are the backbone of your financials. Every other account flows from them. Cash, revenue, expenses, accruals, and balances all depend on what’s coming through the bank. That’s why they need to be closed on day one.

This matters because bank and credit card activity is the most active and time-sensitive data in your books. Transactions are constantly changing. If they’re not finalized early, everything built on top of them is unstable. And because these accounts are the easiest to reconcile, they deliver a massive return for very little effort. This is the cleanest 80/20 move in the close.

At a minimum, all bank and credit card accounts should be fully reconciled to the statement or portal balance. Transactions should be reviewed for duplicates, missing items, and miscategorizations. Anything unclear should be resolved while context is still fresh. If you take nothing else from this checklist, make sure your bank and credit cards are clean and finalized first.

Confirm All Invoicing and Vendor Bills Are Fully Captured

Once the bank and credit cards are locked, the next step is making sure all revenue and expenses for the month are actually recorded.

If you’re running accrual accounting, this step is non-negotiable. All customer invoices related to work performed during the month need to be issued. All vendor bills tied to that same period need to be entered. If something happened this month, it belongs in this month’s numbers.

This step has a direct impact on accuracy and relationships. Missing invoices understate revenue. Late vendor bills distort expenses. And going back weeks or months later to argue balances with customers or vendors creates unnecessary friction. Keeping everyone current and aligned avoids disputes and keeps trust intact.

A good close checklist includes a final review of unbilled work, open projects, and services delivered but not yet invoiced. On the expense side, it includes confirming vendor statements, recurring bills, and any known costs that haven’t hit the system yet. The goal is simple: no surprises after the books are “closed.”

Finish With Manual Entries That Align the Numbers With Reality

The final step in the close is where accounting maturity really shows.

This is where you handle depreciation, amortization, accruals, and deferrals. Tangible assets need to be depreciated. Intangible assets and prepaid expenses need to be amortized. Revenue and expenses need to be deferred or accrued so they land in the period they actually belong to.

This step becomes more important as your business grows and complexity increases. It’s also the hardest part for many business owners because there’s no natural trigger like a bank transaction or card swipe to force the work to happen. If you don’t have a checklist, these entries get skipped.

Tracking is what makes this manageable. Fixed assets, intangibles, prepaid balances, and recurring accruals should live in schedules that roll forward each month. When the starting numbers are clear, the entries are easier and more consistent. As volume grows, upload templates or standardized journal entries can save time and reduce errors.

This step is what turns raw activity into accurate reporting. Without it, your numbers may balance, but they won’t tell the truth.

Why a Basic Close Checklist Changes Everything

A close checklist isn’t about perfection. It’s about reliability.

When you follow the same steps in the same order every month, close gets faster. Nothing important gets missed. Errors surface earlier. And instead of questioning whether the numbers are right, you can focus on what they’re telling you.

Clean, timely closes make performance easier to evaluate. Trends become clearer. Issues are caught sooner. And auditing your own results becomes straightforward because you know what was done and when.

This is where Phoenix CFO Solutions helps businesses level up. We help build and refine close checklists that fit how your business actually operates. Not overengineered. Not theoretical. Just structured, repeatable, and effective.

You should’ve had a close checklist yesterday.
The next best time is today.

Book a free consultation with Phoenix CFO Solutions, and let’s build a close process that gives you clean numbers without the chaos.