Field notes
A close checklist for owner-managed SMEs
When the owner also signs cheques, month-end needs a short, stubborn list—not a textbook close manual.
Owner-managed firms rarely need a fifty-step close. They need ten steps that actually happen. Start with bank and credit-card reconciliations, then payroll accruals, then major supplier invoices received after month-end but belonging to the period.
Next, review suspense and clearing accounts. Balances that linger for more than one period become audit findings even when the amounts are small, because they signal that no one owns the cleanup.
Document related-party transactions in the same week they occur: rent paid to a family company, vehicles used personally, and informal loans. Reconstructing these months later costs more than writing them down once.
Finish with a one-page variance note: what moved versus last month and why. Future auditors—and future you—will thank the author of that note.