Month-End Close

The month-end close is a structured set of tasks you complete after every accounting period to confirm that the books are accurate, balanced, and ready for reporting. Done consistently, it prevents errors from compounding across periods and gives your client reliable financial statements each month.

This guide walks through the full month-end checklist for a typical small-business client in Kuberan Books.

Build a recurring engagement

Create a recurring engagement in Practice Management for each client’s monthly bookkeeping. Attach a Playbook with these checklist items so every step is tracked and nothing falls through the cracks.

Month-end checklist

1. Reconcile all bank accounts

Reconciliation confirms that every transaction in Kuberan Books matches the actual bank statement — no missing transactions, no duplicates, no data entry errors.

For each bank and credit card account:

1. Obtain the bank statement for the month you are closing.
2. Go to Reconciliation, find the account, and click Start Reconciliation.
3. Enter the Statement Date and the Statement Ending Balance from the statement.
4. Work through the transaction list, checking off (clearing) items that appear on both the statement and in Kuberan. You can clear items in bulk and add an adjustment for a bank fee or interest not yet recorded.
5. Click Complete Reconciliation when the Difference is $0.00.

Full instructions: Reconcile a bank account

2. Categorise all remaining transactions

Go to Bank Accounts and work the Transactions tab for the period. There should be no transactions left without a GL Account. Any uncategorised items will distort the Income Statement and Balance Sheet.

If transactions are genuinely unidentifiable, assign them to a Suspense or Uncategorised Expense account temporarily and flag them for client clarification. Do not leave them without a category — unassigned transactions do not post to the ledger.

3. Post accruals via journal entries

For accrual-basis clients, post adjusting entries to ensure revenue and expenses are recognised in the correct period.

Common month-end accruals:

Entry type	Debit	Credit
Accrued revenue (service delivered, not yet invoiced)	Accounts Receivable	Revenue
Accrued expense (expense incurred, no invoice yet)	Expense account	Accrued Liabilities
Prepaid expense allocation	Expense account	Prepaid Expenses
Depreciation	Depreciation Expense	Accumulated Depreciation
Deferred revenue earned this month	Deferred Revenue	Revenue

To post a journal entry: go to Journal Entries and click New Entry. Enter the date (last day of the month), a memo, and the debit/credit lines. A live totals footer shows Balanced or the difference, and Save & Post is disabled until debits equal credits. You can also Save as Draft to post later.

The journal entry form. Save & Post is enabled only when debits equal credits.

4. Review AR aging — follow up on overdue invoices

Go to Reports > AR Aging. This report shows every outstanding customer invoice grouped by age:

• Current (not yet due)
• 1–30 days overdue
• 31–60 days overdue
• 61–90 days overdue
• 90+ days overdue

Review the 31+ day columns with your client. For invoices 60+ days overdue, discuss whether a collection notice or write-off is appropriate. The AR Aging report is also useful for cash-flow planning.

5. Review AP aging — schedule upcoming bill payments

Go to Reports > AP Aging. This shows outstanding vendor bills by age (same buckets as AR Aging). Review with your client:

• Bills due in the next 7–14 days (prioritise these for payment)
• Bills already overdue (contact vendor if needed, verify no late fees have been assessed)
• Large upcoming bills that will affect cash flow

6. Run the Income Statement and compare periods

Go to Reports > Income Statement, set the date range to the month just closed, and use the Compare Periods option to place the prior month or the same month last year side by side. Review with your client:

• Revenue trends — is growth in line with expectations?
• Gross margin — is it consistent with the prior period?
• Unusual expense spikes — any accounts with unexpectedly high balances?
• Net income — does it match your client’s expectations?

Document any material variances and note them in the engagement record.

7. Run the Trial Balance

Go to Reports > Trial Balance as of the last day of the month. Confirm:

• Total debits = total credits
• No accounts with unexpected balances (e.g., a credit balance in a bank account, a debit balance in a liability account)
• No unusual balances in clearing or suspense accounts

8. Close (and lock) the period

Once all the above steps are complete, close the period in Period Management.

1. Go to Period Management.

2. Find the month you want to close (e.g., March 2025) and click Close. Closing calculates final balances for the period.

3. To prevent any further posting to that period, also click Lock. Locking is what actually blocks new or edited transactions dated in the period — closing alone finalises the balances but does not hard-block postings.

Period Management. Close a period to finalise it, then Lock it to prevent further postings.

Reopening and locking

A Closed period can be reopened — click Reopen and enter a reason. A Locked period is more restrictive: locking is permanent and a locked period cannot be reopened, so lock only once you are confident the period is final. Reopening captures the reason you enter in the period’s notes.

See Period closing for details on the implications.

Completing the close

Once the period is closed (and locked), you have a clean set of financials for that month. You can safely run the Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and other reports for the closed period and know the numbers will not change.

File the reports in the engagement record and mark the relevant checklist items complete in the Practice Management engagement.