close-management

A reference and planning aid for running the month-end financial close, organized around task sequencing, dependencies, and status tracking. It provides a structured checklist that spans pre-close activities in the last two to three business days of the month through Close Days 1 to 5, covering cut-off confirmation, sub-ledger processing, accruals, payroll, bank reconciliation, depreciation, revenue recognition, reconciliations, tax provision, draft and final financial statements, period lock, and a close retrospective. It explicitly notes that it assists with the workflow but does not provide financial advice, and that activities should be reviewed by qualified professionals.

Beyond the checklist, it lays out task sequencing through a dependency map with five levels, from Level 1 tasks that can start immediately at T+1 (cash entries, depreciation, prepaid amortization, AP accrual preparation, intercompany posting) up to Level 5 tasks that depend on prior levels (management review, final adjustments, hard close, reporting package, forecast updates). It identifies a typical critical path from cash, AP, and AR entries through subledger and balance sheet reconciliations to tax provision, draft financials, management review, and hard close, and suggests ways to shorten the close such as automating Level 1 entries, continuous reconciliation during the month, parallel-processing independent reconciliations, clear deadlines, and standardized templates.

For execution oversight it defines a close status dashboard with task, owner, deadline, status, blocker, and notes columns, along with status definitions including Not Started, In Progress, Complete, Blocked, and At Risk. It recommends a brief daily 15-minute standup to review the board, surface blockers, reassign or escalate, and update the timeline, and lists close metrics to track over time such as close duration, adjusting entries after soft close, late tasks, reconciliation exceptions, and restatements. A typical five-day close calendar and notes toward an accelerated three-day close round it out. Use it when planning the close calendar, tracking progress, identifying blockers, or sequencing activities by day. The skill is marked not user-invocable.