Month-end close checklist for bookkeeping firms

What is a month-end close and why do you need a checklist?

A month-end close is the point at which you establish that the books for a month or quarter are complete and correct, so the figures can be reported on and the VAT return filed. After that, many accounting packages lock the period, or at least it is not changed without good reason. For the client this means reliable figures; for the firm, a clearly finished piece of work.

A checklist is needed because the close consists of many small checks that are easily forgotten, especially when the team serves dozens or hundreds of administrations. Without a fixed list, quality depends on the experience of the employee and the same errors keep coming back: a suspense account with an old balance, a forgotten prepayment or a missing invoice. With one list for the whole firm, the close is transferable and you can see per administration how far along it is.

Which steps belong on the month-end and quarter-end checklist?

The checklist contains the steps that together prove the period has been processed completely and correctly, in a fixed order. Start with the documents and the bank, because they form the basis; only then do checks on suspense accounts and VAT make sense. The order prevents you from doing a VAT check on books that are still missing invoices.

For quarterly filers, add the VAT steps to the third month of the quarter. If a client files monthly, those steps belong to every month. Record per administration which steps apply and who signs them off, so the close does not depend on one person. A workable checklist:

1. 1Documents: check that all expected purchase and sales invoices and receipts for the period are in and processed, including fixed monthly invoices.
2. 2Bank: make sure all bank accounts are imported up to the last day and the balance in the books matches the bank statement.
3. 3Matching: reconcile all payments and receipts against open items and explain every transaction without a match.
4. 4Client questions: resolve open questions about unknown payments and missing receipts, or note which are still open.
5. 5Suspense accounts: bring transfer accounts, query accounts and other suspense accounts back to zero or to an explainable balance.
6. 6Accruals: book prepaid and accrued expenses and revenue not yet invoiced.
7. 7VAT: check for missing or deviating VAT codes and amounts and reconcile the VAT accounts before filing.
8. 8Reporting: send the client the figures for the period, with the open points.

How do you clear suspense accounts and book accruals?

You clear a suspense account by explaining every item on it and transferring it to the right GL account. A suspense account, such as a transfer account or an account for bank items still to be explained, is meant as a temporary parking place. If there is still a balance at the end of the period, it contains a payment without an invoice, a transfer between the client's own accounts processed on only one side, or an error. Investigate each item, ask the client for an explanation where needed, and book it through.

You book accruals and prepayments to get costs and revenue into the period they belong to. Say a client pays an annual insurance premium of €1,200 in January. Book it as a prepaid expense on the balance sheet and take €100 to expenses each month, with a journal entry: €100 debit insurance expense, €100 credit prepaid expenses. Conversely, costs incurred in the month but not yet invoiced, such as energy, are booked as accrued expenses.

What do you check before filing the VAT return?

Before filing the VAT return you check that all invoices for the period have been processed and that every entry has the correct VAT code and VAT amount. For quarterly filers in the Netherlands, the return must reach the Belastingdienst no later than the last day of the month following the quarter, so 31 October 2026 for the third quarter of 2026. The exact dates are in the annual return letter the business receives and in Mijn Belastingdienst Zakelijk.

Watch especially for deviations: an expense without VAT where 21% normally applies, reverse-charge VAT booked as ordinary VAT, or input VAT on costs for which the client has no right to deduct. Also reconcile the balance of the VAT accounts with the return. If you find an error in an earlier return, a difference of up to €1,000 is processed in the next return. For a difference of more than €1,000 a correction (suppletie) is mandatory, no later than 8 weeks after the error was discovered.

• All purchase and sales invoices for the period have been processed.
• No entries with missing or illogical VAT codes.
• Reverse-charge VAT and intra-community transactions are on the right codes.
• The balance of the VAT accounts matches the return.
• Corrections from earlier periods have been processed or filed as a suppletie.

How does Autoboeker help with the month-end close?

Autoboeker helps mainly because processing keeps flowing instead of piling up until the end of the month. Booking proposals with a confidence score show which entries were processed automatically and which still need review. With every entry, Autoboeker checks for missing VAT, a deviating VAT code and a deviating VAT amount, and it supports accruals and prepayments. Team statistics show the number of bookings, the auto-booking percentage and open client questions per team and employee, and the configuration monitor shows which administrations are missing settings or connections.

For the bank: with Exact Online, Twinfield and SnelStart, bank lines are synchronised and matched, and unmatched transactions are visible per administration. A transaction without a match can automatically become a client question, and client questions are followed up automatically, with the status per client in one overview. Bank matching is not available for e-Boekhouden. VAT analysis, with the VAT position per administration and per period, is only available for Exact Online; with the other packages you reconcile VAT in the software itself.