Month-close checklist: Evidence, bank, questions, and handoff

The month-close sequence at a glance

The order matters. A bank match can reveal a missing invoice; a payout reconstruction can reveal a prior-period balance; an owner answer can invalidate a previously prepared proposal. Later gates depend on the earlier evidence remaining true.

Step 1: define the exact close boundary

Confirm the legal entity, calendar month, accounting basis under professional guidance, currencies, and every source of money. List bank accounts, cash registers, card processors, marketplace or mobility platforms, and owner-paid transactions. If an account had no movement, record that fact rather than silently omitting it.

Also record cutoffs. A June invoice paid in July and a June platform sale settled in July may both belong in the June evidence story even though the bank movement appears later. The right treatment depends on the case; the close process must at least preserve the timing relationship for review.

Step 2: prove source coverage

Build an expected-source map from how the business actually operates.

• Supplier invoices and receipts, including owner-paid items.
• Contracts and recurring charges such as rent, insurance, utilities, and software.
• Sales invoices, cash or point-of-sale summaries, and manual revenue evidence.
• Payout and transaction reports from platforms or payment processors.
• Bank and cash statements for the complete period.
• Credit notes, refunds, disputes, deposits, loans, and inter-account transfers.
• Payroll and employment evidence for the responsible payroll/accounting workflow; DeinHans does not calculate payroll merely because the evidence is collected.

“Received” is not the same as “usable”. A cropped receipt without supplier, date, amount, or business purpose can still block preparation.

Step 3: prepare sales, costs, and payouts

Connect each business event to its source and payment context. Recurring items should be checked against the current-period invoice or contractual evidence rather than copied blindly from last month. Credit notes and refunds should retain their relationship to the original event.

For platform payouts, preserve the gross activity, fees, refunds, reserves, carried balances, and net bank settlement separately. The bank amount alone is not the activity record.

Step 4: reconcile every money channel

For each bank or cash account, compare the authoritative statement population with the imported or prepared population. Every movement should end in one of a small number of visible outcomes:

• linked to an invoice, receipt, sale, or payout;
• identified as a transfer with the other side present;
• explained as an owner or other non-routine movement with evidence;
• left as an open item because settlement belongs elsewhere in time;
• routed as an exception because evidence or judgement is missing.

Do not use the closing balance alone as proof. Missing debit and credit rows can offset each other while the balance still agrees.

Step 5: clear questions without inventing facts

A good close question contains the source, the observed conflict, the fact needed, and the consequence. For example:

“Bank row 18 June, €1,190 to Cloud North Ltd: the attached document says training, while the recurring supplier record describes software. Was this a training service for staff, and is there a separate invoice for the software subscription?”

The owner supplies facts about purpose, participants, payment channel, and business relationship. Software can extract and compare evidence. The accountant decides material accounting and tax treatment.

Step 6: review prepared cases and exceptions

Prepared work should show the original source, relevant owner answer, payment or open-item context, proposed result, and why review is needed. A balanced proposal is not automatically correct. Review actions should be attributable: approved, changed, returned for evidence, or held.

Any material change to the source or owner facts invalidates dependent preparation. Re-run the affected checks rather than preserving an approval that relied on old information.

Synthetic month status example

The following example is invented.

Linden & Form GmbH is preparing June. Its expected-source map contains two banks, one card processor, one marketplace, 42 supplier documents, 12 sales invoices, recurring rent and insurance, and payroll evidence for the external payroll workflow.

This month is not “error-free”. It is reviewable because the completed work is evidenced and the four remaining issues are specific, assigned, and not disguised.

What DeinHans prepares

DeinHans can organise incoming evidence, maintain source-related tasks, prepare supported payout reconstructions and bank matches, assemble booking proposals, and show remaining exceptions in the month workflow. This turns a folder of mixed files into a structured handover where owner facts and accountant decisions remain visible.

The boundary is explicit: DeinHans does not make a month legally or professionally closed by changing a status. It does not sign, file, calculate payroll, guarantee downstream import, or waive missing evidence. Product coverage also varies by source and format; unsupported cases remain questions or review work.

Responsibility checklist

Final handover gate

Before handover, confirm:

• Period, legal entity, accounts, currencies, and source channels are complete.
• Original documents and reports remain available.
• Sales, costs, credit notes, and payouts are represented without improper netting.
• Every bank and cash movement has a supported or explicitly open outcome.
• Open items and carried balances reconcile from opening to closing.
• Questions are answered or listed as blockers with an owner and next action.
• Prepared proposals point back to evidence and have the required review state.
• The exception list travels with the package.
• Handover wording does not imply professional approval, export success, filing, or statutory close.

That is the useful definition of a closed preparation cycle: the next reviewer can see what happened, what was prepared, what remains, and who must act.