Monthly Bookkeeping Checklist
Ninety minutes a month that makes year-end cheap
What is in it
- Reconcile first — 4 items
- Then categorise — 4 items
- Then review — 4 items
- Then file and set aside — 3 items
One page, designed to be printed and worked with a pen. Brand header, our contact details and a version date on the page.
The difference between a business whose year-end takes two weeks and one whose year-end takes two days is almost never the accountant. It is whether twelve small monthly efforts happened, or whether one large annual reconstruction is required instead.
This is a one-page routine designed to take about ninety minutes a month for a business of ordinary complexity. It is deliberately short. A checklist with forty items does not get done; one with fifteen does, and fifteen is enough to keep books in a state where the numbers can be trusted during the year rather than only after it.
The order matters. Reconciling first means everything after it is being done against numbers that agree with the bank, rather than against a guess that will need redoing.
Keep it somewhere you will see it — beside the desk, or inside the front of the folder where the month’s paperwork goes. The value is not in any single item but in the routine, and routines survive on visibility rather than intention. Most owners find the whole page takes ninety minutes in month one and closer to forty by month three, because a reconciled account has far fewer surprises in it than an unreconciled one.
Want the updated version each year?
Tax figures and filing dates move. Leave your email and we will send the refreshed copy when it changes — that is all we use it for. The download above works either way.
General information, not tax advice. This checklist is a general aid for Canadian business owners. It does not account for your circumstances and does not create a professional relationship. Speak to a CPA before acting — book a free consult.