A monthly close is not the time to discover what happened. It is the time to confirm that sales, purchases, banks, taxes and adjustments tell the same story. When a company leaves everything until the end, its accountant starts requesting XML files through chat, searching for unexplained deposits and issuing reports that change three times. A checklist replaces that improvisation with a known sequence.
The list does not need to be enormous. It needs to define what is reviewed, who answers each exception and which evidence completes a stage. A small service company may have fewer transactions than a distributor, but both need complete documents, reconciled balances, a defined period and visible unresolved items.
During the month: capture information while context is fresh
Closing becomes slow when transactions are entered weeks after they occurred. Keep sales invoices in their real state, apply partial customer payments as they arrive, and send supplier XML files to a shared reception queue. If a purchase has a difference, record the reason beside the document. At month end, nobody should have to remember what an unidentified transfer on the fourth day meant.
- Issue and approve sales invoices in the correct period.
- Apply collections to the corresponding invoice, including partial payments.
- Collect XML, PDF and response files for relevant purchases.
- Record expenses without an electronic document together with support and an explanation.
- Identify void, rejected or correction-pending documents.
- Resolve inventory movements left in draft.
First cutoff: sales and accounts receivable
Review invoice sequence and status. An approved invoice tied to the wrong customer affects follow-up and reporting. A paid invoice left open inflates receivables. Compare sales dates with work actually delivered and separate drafts belonging to the next month. Then read the aging report. Older balances need an explanation rather than merely appearing in a red column.
Ask the collections owner for a short note on material items: promised date, dispute, payment received but not applied, or possible write-off under review. That note does not create an accounting entry by itself. It prevents management from interpreting every overdue balance as forgotten collection work and shows which customer conversations should happen before close approval.
Second cutoff: purchases, suppliers and IVA
Accounts payable should begin with purchases the business recognizes. Confirm supplier, date, currency, due date, lines, taxes and support. In Costa Rica, also review the receiver ID in the XML, the Receiver Message when applicable and IVA treatment. A supplier document does not become a deductible expense merely because it arrived in an inbox.
- Separate XML files addressed to another legal entity and remove duplicates.
- Confirm that each bill belongs to the correct period and supplier.
- Review incoming credit notes and their effect on supplier balances.
- Classify IVA using the policy defined with the accountant.
- Match supplier payments to the purchases they settle.
- Maintain an explicit queue for documents still pending.
Third cutoff: banks and transactions
Import the complete bank statement rather than a screenshot of the ending balance. Reconcile deposits against invoices, withdrawals against bills and transfers between accounts without creating fictitious income or expense. Fees, interest and automatic charges are often small, but together they explain differences that otherwise become one unsupported adjustment.
A completed reconciliation does not mean every line found an automatic match. It means every difference has a reviewed decision: applied payment, transfer, categorized transaction or pending item with an owner. If the ledger balance does not agree with the statement at the cutoff date, the close is not complete.
Reports, review and period lock
Generate the trial balance, income statement, balance sheet and cash flow after the cutoffs. Compare them with the prior month and budget when available. Investigate changes with no operating explanation: an unexpected margin, negative bank account, duplicated expense or customer balance that moved without a payment. A report exists to prompt questions, not to decorate the close folder.
After the accountant approves the period, closing it prevents quiet changes to the past. Later corrections should follow an authorized reopening or rectification flow and retain documentation. In Tario, documents, reconciliation, books and reports come from the same records, reducing the number of separate sheets compared before making that decision.