Month-end close
Updated
Closing the month is the deliverable everything else depends on. A budget, a forecast and a reporting pack are all worth exactly as much as the close underneath them.
This is part of the controller half of a fractional CFO or fractional controller engagement.
Quick answer: A month-end close is a defined checklist run on a stated day: accruals, prepaids, deferred revenue, intercompany balances, work in progress, and a reconciliation of every balance sheet account rather than just the bank. It finishes within about ten working days of month end, and the date is in the scope rather than left open.
On this page
What the checklist covers
- Bank, credit card and loan accounts reconciled to statements, with the differences explained rather than plugged.
- Accruals and prepaids posted, so costs land in the month they belong to.
- Deferred revenue recognized as it is earned rather than when it was invoiced.
- Work in progress valued where jobs span the month end.
- Intercompany balances agreed between entities before either set of books closes.
- Every remaining balance sheet account supported by a schedule, which is where the surprises actually hide.
The bank is the account everyone reconciles. The ones that quietly drift are the small balance sheet accounts nobody has looked at since incorporation, and they are exactly what an auditor or a buyer opens first.
Why the date matters more than the detail
A perfect close finished six weeks late describes a situation that has already changed. The single most common failure in owner-managed reporting is not accuracy, it is lateness.
So the date is fixed first and the content improved afterwards. Once the close reliably lands on the tenth working day, the reporting pack can be trusted, and everything built on it inherits that reliability. The month-end close CFO reporting relies on is the controller half of the engagement, which is why its date is fixed before its content is refined.
What it changes at year end
A file closed monthly arrives at year end already closed. The adjusting entries are small, the questions were answered in the month they arose, and the corporate return costs less because there is nothing to reconstruct.
The opposite case is a year rebuilt in one sitting, where the adjusting entries are large enough to change what you thought the year looked like.
The close is the first deliverable of the fractional controller engagement; the reporting pack, the forecast and the file kept ready for a lender or a review are the other four.
Who this is for, and who it is not
A good fit: a business with enough monthly activity that a year-end reconstruction is painful, and anyone whose reports currently arrive too late to act on.
Not a fit: a very low-volume company where an annual clean-up costs less than twelve monthly closes and loses nothing that matters. We say so on the first call.
Other fractional cfo or controller work
The rest of what this covers, and the page each one is on.
Common questions about the close
Who does the actual bookkeeping?+
How long does it take to get to a reliable date?+
Is this the same as bookkeeping?+
What does it cost?+
Starting fees
Every fee is fixed in writing before any work begins.
- Monthly bookkeeping, GST/PST filing includedfrom $325 a monthThis page
- Payroll, remittances, T4s and ROEsincluded in monthly bookkeeping
- Books, payroll and the year-end T2 together$500–$700 a month
- Corporate year-end and T2 returnfixed fee, quoted in writing
- Personal tax return (T1)from $125; self-employed or rental $275–$500
- Catch-up bookkeepingfrom $2,200 per year of records
- Controller or CFO supportcontroller from $1,650, CFO from $2,750 a month
- One-off advice call with a CPA$225 plus GST