What Clean Books Actually Look Like
A month end close checklist you can use whether we keep your books or you do, and the real signs your books are not as clean as you think.
What does "clean" actually mean?
Every account reconciles to the actual bank and credit card statements, every transaction is categorized correctly, and nothing sits in a catch all or uncategorized bucket waiting to be dealt with later.
That sounds simple, but it is the difference between books you can make a real decision from and books that just exist. Clean books answer "where do I actually stand" without a week of digging first.
The month end close checklist
The same steps we run every month for our own bookkeeping clients, in order:
- Reconcile every bank and credit card account against the actual statement, transaction by transaction.
- Review accounts payable and receivable for anything overdue, missing, or duplicated.
- Check the chart of accounts for anything sitting in "uncategorized" or a generic catch-all category, and move it to where it actually belongs.
- Accrue known expenses and revenue that belong in the month even if the cash has not moved yet.
- Scan for duplicates or missing transactions, the most common source of a bank balance that will not match the books.
- Generate the financial statements and actually read them, not just file them.
- File the supporting documentation so the answer to "why did we spend this" is one search away, not a memory test.
Signs your books are not as clean as you think
- Your bank balance and your books do not agree, and you are not sure why.
- "Uncategorized" or "ask my accountant" is one of your biggest expense categories.
- You do not know your real number until tax time, once a year.
- You have stopped trusting the report enough to actually use it for a decision.
Any one of these is common. All of them together usually means the books have quietly fallen behind.
What if mine are already behind?
Common, not a dealbreaker. A one-time clean up gets everything current and reconciled first, then moves you onto a regular monthly schedule so it stays that way. Read how clean up projects are priced and how long they take, including a real example of a clean up that started with a CRA letter and ended with a client who now sleeps easy every month.
See also: sole proprietor vs incorporation, when the switch pays off and GST/HST for Ottawa small businesses.
Common Questions
Frequently asked questions
Let's look at your books
Not sure how clean yours actually are?
A free 30 minute call is enough to tell you where you stand.