Accurate month-end closings will lead to better planning, fewer adjustments, and less time rectifying costly mistakes.

Your monthly financial statements provide key performance indicators that can help your company in decision making. Most companies have a routine month-end close process that can help stakeholders see the “big picture” through various financial reports. This key data is also important to maintain to minimize tax liability and avoid unexpected tax payments.

Internal financial reports only hold value if they are prepared accurately using a basis of accounting, such as Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), and can be produced within a reasonable period after the month-end.

To produce statements in a timely matter, your company needs to keep up on your accounting transactions throughout the month. It is a best practice to have checklists throughout the month and during the closing process to allow you to create timely and accurate financial statements.

Maintaining daily transactions, regular reconciliation of journal entries, and tracking variance will help correct wrong information, save time and money in the long run, and inhibit fraud that might otherwise go unnoticed.

At Wilke & Associates, CPAs, and Business Advisors, we can help your small businesses set expectations for the closing process and come up with a set of procedures unique to your company to ensure you are completing the closing process most efficiently and accurately possible and even help with your monthly closings by helping you set a realistic closing date, run accurate reports and make any adjusting entries needed.

Written by Amanda Lynch, CPA

Amanda is a general ledger manager and business advisor at Wilke & Associates. She currently serves closely-held businesses using her prior experience as a corporate accounting manager in the manufacturing industry. Her resume includes serving clients in various business sectors to include distribution, logistics, real estate, and pension plans.