Month end close checklist

A monthly close is the small ritual that transforms a pile of transactions into a coherent set of reports the board can act on. This article walks you through it as a checklist. Total time on the first run: about 45 minutes. After you’ve done it 3 or 4 times: 20 to 30 minutes.

The goal: by the time you’re done, you’ll have produced every report your board needs, reconciled against the bank, and locked the books so prior periods don’t get accidentally edited. Bank reconciliation and the reports are part of Herald Automate.

When to do this

The first week of each month, after your bank statement has arrived. Most US banks email or post statements within 2 to 5 business days of month end. Aim to complete the close by the 10th of the month.

What you need before starting

• Your bank statement(s) for the prior month, opened in a separate window or printed.
• 30 to 45 minutes of uninterrupted time.
• The HomeHerald admin app, logged in.

The checklist

1. Confirm transactions are recorded

Go to Finances > Transactions and skim last month’s entries:

• Are all the dues payments in (resident checks, online payments)?
• Are all the vendor bills logged (landscaping, pool, insurance)?
• Did you mark the bills you actually paid as Paid?

If any are missing, add them now. For paper checks from residents that haven’t been recorded, click Add, choose Property Payment / Charge, and record them as a payment received.

For vendor bills, choose Expense / Adjustment on the same chooser.

2. Reconcile each cash account

Go to Finances > Accounts. For each active account, click Reconcile.

Walk through the four step flow (detailed in the bank reconciliation article):

1. Confirm the period is last month.
2. Enter the bank statement opening and ending balance.
3. Tick each transaction that appears on the statement.
4. Use Add Adjustment for anything on the bank statement that’s missing from the system (bank service charges, interest, etc.).
5. When the difference is $0, click Close [month].

Repeat for every account that has activity (Operating, Reserve if you used it, etc.).

The system will warn you if your statement opening doesn’t match the prior period’s ending. Investigate that mismatch before closing.

3. Spot check the Account Integrity Audit

Back on Finances > Accounts, expand the Account Integrity Audit panel (it runs when you open it; Re-run Audit runs it again).

You’re looking for:

• Cash events: 0 missing accountId
• Paid expenses: 0 missing accountId
• Transfer pairs (if any): 0 unbalanced
• Balance reconciliation: matches

A green “Clean” chip means your books are mathematically consistent. If you see amber “Issues,” investigate before generating reports.

4. Pull the Profit & Loss report

Go to Finances > Reports > Profit & Loss.

1. Set the period to Last Month.
2. Toggle Compare prior period ON.
3. Review the revenue and expense lines. Anything unexpected?
4. Click PDF to download a board ready printout.

Sanity checks:

• Dues revenue should be roughly your community’s expected dues for the period.
• Net income should make rough sense vs your bank balance change.
• If you run the P&L on Accrual, the note under the summary cards shows the cash actually received. The gap between that and revenue should roughly match the increase in receivables (visible on AR Aging).

5. Pull the Balance Sheet and read the tie-out

Go to Finances > Reports > Balance Sheet.

1. Set As of to the last day of the closed period.
2. Leave the basis on Cash basis unless your board reports on accrual. Use the same basis you picked on the Profit & Loss, so the two reports tell one story.
3. Read the tie-out strip under the statement.
4. Click PDF to download.

The tie-out is why this step is in the checklist. It sets Change in cash next to Net income (cash) and prints the Difference. Green, with a difference of $0.00, means the money in the bank grew by exactly what the association earned - your P&L, your balance sheet, and your bank all agree. Amber means they don’t, and there are two usual culprits: a transaction that isn’t assigned to a cash account (the report gives those their own amber row) or a transfer with only one side written down. Chase it now, while you still remember the month.

One thing to know before you read it: the strip covers January 1 through the date you set, not just the month you closed. It’s a year-to-date proof, so a difference you shrug off in March is still sitting there in November.

The report itself is covered in the balance sheet article.

6. Pull the AR Aging report

Go to Finances > Reports > AR Aging.

1. Set As of to the last day of the closed period.
2. Click PDF to download.
3. Skim the 90+ day buckets. Any new escalations?

This is the document for any collections decisions the board needs to make.

7. Pull the AP Aging report

Same flow at Finances > Reports > AP Aging:

1. Set As of to the last day of the closed period.
2. Click PDF.
3. Skim the 60+ day overdue bills. Anything that needs urgent payment?

8. Save and file

You now have:

• One reconciliation PDF per account
• One P&L PDF
• One Balance Sheet PDF
• One AR Aging PDF
• One AP Aging PDF

File them in your community’s records folder (Google Drive, Dropbox, paper folder, whatever you use). Send copies to the board if your community expects monthly distribution.

9. Note any irregularities for the next board meeting

If you noticed anything unusual during the close (a mystery $50 charge, a deposit you couldn’t categorize, a vendor bill that doesn’t match the statement), make a note for discussion. The board will appreciate the heads up rather than discovering it during a meeting.

What this gives you

• Locked books for the period (reconciled transactions show a RECONCILED chip and their dates are locked).
• An audit trail showing who closed what, when, and against what bank balances.
• A consistent monthly packet for the board.
• Confidence that prior period reports won’t quietly shift: a reconciled transaction cannot move to another month without reopening the period, and editing one shows a warning.

The first close: extra steps

If this is your first month using the close workflow:

1. Set up cash accounts first (cash accounts article) with accurate opening balances.
2. Run the Account Integrity Audit and click Fix N untagged records if it finds legacy data without account tags.
3. The first reconciliation establishes the baseline. The next month’s reconciliation will compare opening balances automatically.

Skipping a month

Try not to. The longer you go between closes, the harder it is to remember what each transaction was for, and the more likely you’ll have data drift you can’t easily explain.

If you do skip a month: catch up in chronological order. Close month 1 first, then move to month 2, so each closed period matches one bank statement. If you are many months behind and the statements are hard to come by, the Catch up button on the reconciliation screen covers everything unreconciled through today in one pass (see the bank reconciliation article).

Templates and customizing

Want a different report set or different bucket cutoffs? Email support@homeherald.ai. The current set covers what most volunteer boards need; your edge case might be common enough to add.

What you can stop doing

If you’ve been:

• Maintaining a separate spreadsheet to track AR by property
• Running QuickBooks just for the bank reconciliation
• Hand calculating who’s behind on dues
• Asking a bookkeeper to produce monthly reports

You can stop. The HomeHerald monthly close produces all of those outputs faster, with a tighter audit trail, and without anyone needing accounting training. Treat it as the new normal for your community’s books.