Monthly close
A close is a checklist because a close is boring, and boring work done from memory is work done differently each time. This runs on the first working day after month end and takes under an hour at this size.
The rule
The month is shut when every line below is done, or when a line that cannot be done is written up with a reason. A close with an unexplained gap is not a close; it is a decision to find out later.
The checklist
- Freeze the period. No further entries dated inside the closing month.
Anything that arrives afterwards belongs to the new month with a note.
- Bank and card. Reconcile every account to its statement. The closing
balance in the model must equal the statement balance, to the cent. A difference is chased now, not carried.
- Invoices out. Every invoice issued in the period is recorded with its
number, client, amount, sent date, terms and expected pay date. The expected pay date is a judgement, and it is revisited here rather than left where it was set.
- Invoices in. Every bill received is recorded against the month it relates
to, not the month it was paid.
- Recurring tooling. Every subscription that charged in the period is
checked off against the expected charge. A charge that moved, rose, or arrived for something nobody uses is flagged here, which is the only point in the month where anyone is actually looking.
- Tax reserve. The percentage of the period's inflow is moved out of
available cash. If it did not move, the runway figure for the period is overstated and gets corrected before anything is published.
- Runway. Re-run the model on the closed numbers. Record the runway figure
and the zero-crossing month for the period.
- Variance. Compare the closed month against what the model said it would
be. Write up anything over the threshold. See the variance note for what that looks like.
- Vendors. Check the vendor list against what actually billed. A vendor
that billed and is not on the list is a subprocessor nobody declared, which is a trust problem before it is a finance one.
- Version and publish. Bump the version, date the documents, commit.
What produces what
| Step | Produces | Where it lands |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Reconciled closing balance | Model input for the new month |
| 3 and 4 | Receivables and payables for the period | Model inflow and outflow |
| 5 | Recurring cost for the period, and any change to it | Model outflow, and the vendor list |
| 6 | Tax reserved for the period | Fenced off the runway figure |
| 7 | Runway and zero-crossing month | The board pack, section 3 |
| 8 | The variance note | Variance |
| 9 | Any vendor change | The trust desk's subprocessor list |
Where it stands
Steps 2 through 8 have no data to run against yet. The figures they produce are recorded as open (N-1), and the first real close happens once owner review of product-facts.md lands (T-4, due 2026-10-03).
We are publishing the checklist before the first close on purpose. A process written after the fact tends to describe what happened rather than what should happen.
Vendor check, this period
The vendor list as it stands is Vercel for hosting (V-2), GitHub for source control (V-3), Vercel Analytics and Speed Insights on the portfolio site (V-4), and Anthropic for the AI provider used across the repositories (V-5). Two entries are open: DNS and registrar (V-1) and company email (V-6). Step 9 cannot be signed off while two vendors are unidentified, and it is recorded as incomplete rather than skipped.