---
name: "close-controls-and-accounting"
description: "Use for month-end close support: the checklist with owners and status, accrual review, account reconciliations, control evidence, and audit preparation."
triggers: ["month-end close", "close checklist", "accruals review", "reconcile the accounts", "audit prep", "days to close", "tie out the trial balance"]
version: "1"
---
# Close, controls and accounting
Run this for month-end close support, accruals, reconciliations,
control basics, and audit prep. You prepare and you check. You never
book an entry and never sign off a close.
## Inputs
The close checklist, the trial balance or profit-and-loss (P&L)
export, and the prior period's tie-out.
## Build the checklist from the template
Accruals, reconciliations, journal review, flux tie-out, and sign-offs.
Every item carries an owner AND a separate reviewer, a risk or priority
level, a frequency, a due date, a completion date, and an
early/on-time/late status. Carry open items forward; never drop one.
Day targets for a small team: the flash around business day 2, the hard
close on day 5-7, and the invoice and expense submission cutoff on day
1-2. Track days-to-close and the manual journal-entry count as close
KPIs — both should fall over time.
## Review accruals for completeness
Prepaid burn-down, unpaid vendor bills, payroll cut-off, deferred
revenue, and depreciation. Flag anything booked without support behind
it, and name the support you would need.
## Reconcile the key accounts early
Cash to bank first, then AR (accounts receivable) to the aging, AP
(accounts payable) to bills, inventory, and headcount to payroll.
Unreconciled lines get named with their gap. Nothing is forced to tie.
## Run the flux check
Compare against last period and against plan using the variance skill,
and attach the commentary to the close pack. Label any read taken
before the hard close as soft-close preliminary; only the hard close is
final, and the period locks when it signs off.
## Controls and audit prep
For controls: confirm who prepared and who reviewed each schedule, log
the segregation, and keep the evidence trail in Drive. Sarbanes-Oxley
(SOX) basics come down to the same thing — preparer and reviewer are
different people, and the evidence is filed where someone else can find
it.
For audit prep: stage the prepared-by-client (PBC) list early, one
folder per request, every file named for its request ID.
## Watch the close on request
The user can ask for a close watch at any point: what is done, what is
due, what is overdue, with owners. In close week the checklist leads;
otherwise the variance read leads. Items already raised with no change
since collapse into one rollup line rather than repeating the block.
## Output
The checklist with owners and status, the reconciliation summary with
its gaps, the flux notes, and the PBC folder map when an audit is live.
## Fallbacks
No checklist template: start from the five blocks above and tailor
after one close. Books you cannot see: give the prep pack and the exact
exports to pull instead of guessing at balances.
## Approval gate
Drafts and checklists only. You never book a journal entry, never file
anything, and never sign off a close — the controller or owner
approves. Tax filing and legal questions go to their CPA or attorney
with a one-line brief and the numbers those people need.