month-end close
Every post tagged month-end close.
A period you can still edit is not closed
Locking a period is what makes a reported number mean something. Everything found afterwards is a correction posted forward — visible, dated, and leaving the original in place.
Accruals and prepayments, and the reversal that stops the double count
Adjusting entries are where a cash-shaped ledger becomes an accrual one. They are also where the same cost gets counted twice, because the adjustment was never reversed.
Your payroll liability accounts should have a shape
Each payroll liability has a predictable rhythm. A balance that does not fit the rhythm is the cheapest error you will ever find — and the one most often found by the CRA instead.
The accounting cycle, and why the order is not negotiable
Every set of books runs the same loop from transaction to statement. Knowing the sequence is what turns bookkeeping from a pile of tasks into a process you can hand to someone else.
Bank reconciliation is a completeness check, not a tick-box exercise
Matching the ledger to the statement proves your books contain everything that happened. Here is what the differences actually mean, and which ones are a problem.
A month-end close that closes
The close is a sequence, not a checklist you can do in any order. Getting the order right is most of what makes a period stay closed once you have signed it off.