Your monthly close is either a calm, repeatable sequence that takes four hours per client, or it’s a panic on the 12th of every month. There’s no in-between. The difference isn’t skill — it’s whether you work from a checklist.
Most bookkeeping VAs build their close process in their head. They know what to do; they just don’t do it in the same order every month. One month you reconcile first and categorize second. Next month it’s reversed because you were waiting on a bank statement. You miss a step. A transaction slips into the wrong month. The P&L shows a $3,400 expense in June that should have been in May. The client emails: “what’s this?” You spend 45 minutes investigating your own work.
A written checklist solves this entirely.
The 15-step monthly close
This is the order that works for most bookkeeping VA engagements. Adapt it to your software and client mix.
Pre-close (Days 1–5 of the following month)
1. Confirm all statements are in. Bank statements, credit card statements, loan statements, merchant processor statements, payroll reports. If one is missing on Day 5, email the client once. If it’s still missing on Day 7, email again. Do not start close work until every statement for the period is in your inbox.
2. Import all transactions. Bank feeds, credit card feeds, payroll journal entries, merchant deposits. Confirm the feed pulled through the end of the period. Missing transactions at the end of the month are the #1 cause of reconciliation mismatches.
3. Categorize everything that’s autocategorized. Run your rules. Accept the auto-categorization where you trust it. This takes 20 minutes and clears 80% of the transactions.
Categorization (Days 5–7)
4. Work the “uncategorized” bucket. Every transaction your rules didn’t catch goes here. Categorize each one. Any transaction you’re not sure about gets tagged “ASK CLIENT” — don’t guess.
5. Send the client the ASK CLIENT list. One email, one list, specific questions. “Venmo to ‘Mike L’ for $480 on 5/14 — vendor or personal?” Not “hey I have some questions about your transactions.” Specific questions get specific answers.
6. Wait. Do not proceed without answers. Move the client to “waiting” status. Work on a different client’s close in the meantime. Coming back to this client saves you context-switch time.
Reconciliation (Days 8–12)
7. Reconcile bank accounts. Each account, one at a time. Don’t move to the next account until this one reconciles to the penny. “Close enough” is not a thing in reconciliation.
8. Reconcile credit card accounts. Same rule. To the penny.
9. Reconcile loan accounts. Check the current principal balance against the lender’s statement. Missed interest accrual is the most common error here.
10. Reconcile payroll. Tie payroll liabilities to what was actually remitted. Out-of-balance payroll liabilities are the #2 cause of year-end problems.
11. Reconcile merchant processing deposits. Stripe, Square, PayPal — they deposit net of fees, and the fees need to be categorized as expense, not a reduction of revenue.
Review (Day 10–12)
12. Run the Profit & Loss and scan for anomalies. Revenue 3x normal? Office supplies 10x normal? A category that wasn’t there last month? Dig in before you deliver.
13. Run the Balance Sheet and verify it balances. If it doesn’t balance, something posted to the wrong side of a transaction. Stop and fix.
14. Cross-check Balance Sheet against reconciled account balances. Your Balance Sheet’s “Cash” line should equal the sum of your reconciled bank accounts. If not, there’s a transaction that didn’t clear the reconciliation properly.
Delivery (Day 10–12)
15. Deliver the reports. P&L, Balance Sheet, and a brief note. The note should cover: (a) anything unusual that explains variance from last month, (b) any client actions needed (e.g., “your inventory categorization needs a once-over next month”), and (c) confirmation that the period is closed.
That’s it. Close done.
Why the order matters
Beginners do the steps out of order and think “it all gets done eventually.” The order matters for one reason: each step depends on the previous step being clean.
Reconciliation is meaningless if categorization is wrong — you’ll reconcile to a balance that includes misallocated expenses. Reports are meaningless if reconciliation hasn’t cleared — you’re reporting on a snapshot that doesn’t match reality. Delivery is meaningless if you haven’t reviewed the P&L for anomalies — you’re asking the client to catch errors you should have caught.
Following the sequence is what makes the close auditable.
The “ASK CLIENT” rule
Step 5 is the single most important process improvement you’ll make. Most bookkeeping VAs email the client with questions as they come up — which means three emails per month, each interrupting the client’s actual work.
Instead, batch them. During categorization, every uncertain transaction goes on one list. At the end of categorization, one email goes to the client with the entire list. The client responds once. You close the questions in one pass.
This cuts client-facing email by ~70% and makes the close dramatically less disruptive for the client. It also forces you to not guess — because you know you’re sending the list, you’re more likely to flag borderline items instead of picking a category and moving on.
When the client doesn’t respond
You sent the ASK CLIENT list on Day 5. It’s Day 10 and no response. What now?
Three options, in order:
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Second email, one sentence. “Following up on the ASK CLIENT list — do you have time today to answer? I need responses by Friday to close on time.”
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If still no response by Day 12: categorize conservatively to the most defensible bucket and flag it. For ambiguous expenses, use “Ask My Accountant” as the category. For ambiguous income, flag as “Owner Investment” until confirmed. Deliver the books with a clear note in the delivery email: “Categorized [X, Y, Z] to Ask My Accountant — please review and confirm.”
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If this is a pattern: raise it at the next month’s check-in. “I noticed the ASK CLIENT list took 9 days to get responses last month. Can we set a recurring reminder on your calendar for the 5th and 10th? Response delays are making it hard to close on time.”
The one thing you never do: close with guesses. Guessing saves you 20 minutes and costs the client three hours of cleanup at year-end.
The 10th-of-the-month rule
Most retainers promise delivery “by the 10th of the following month.” This is achievable if your close runs on schedule. It’s also achievable if you’re willing to miss the 10th by 1–2 days when the client is slow to respond.
The 10th is not a magic number. Pick a date that reflects your actual process including reasonable client response time. If you promise the 10th and deliver on the 12th three months in a row, your retainer promise is wrong — either the client is slow and you need to educate them, or your estimate was too aggressive.
Change the retainer to promise “by the 15th” and then deliver consistently by the 12th. Underpromise and overdeliver.
What to do when you inherit messy books
The close process above assumes you’re working clean books month-over-month. When you inherit a client with a backlog — 4 months of uncategorized transactions, reconciliations that haven’t been done in a year — close is the wrong tool.
That’s a cleanup project, priced separately. You don’t try to do six months of cleanup work inside your regular retainer fee. Ever.
Structure the cleanup as a one-time project with its own scope, its own deliverable (clean books through [date]), and its own price. Then start the regular retainer after cleanup is done.
Trying to “clean as you go” during the regular retainer is the fastest way to work unpaid hours.
What to do today
If you have 3+ bookkeeping clients and no written close checklist, build one this afternoon. The 15-step list above is a starting point — adapt the order, the software specifics, the categories to your practice.
Then use it next month. Literally open the document and check boxes as you go.
You will be surprised how much faster your close gets.
If you want a Monthly Close Checklist template pre-built in editable form, the TenKeyOps Etsy shop has it alongside the contract templates.