Why a checklist beats a routine.
Routines fail when the bookkeeper is on leave or a branch manager is replaced. A written checklist with named owners, deadlines, and acceptance criteria survives turnover. The 12 steps below are the standard cycle for a multi-branch SMB, refined across audits of retail, distribution, and services businesses. Each step has a clear handoff: branch manager produces, head office reconciles, owner reviews, accountant signs off.
Companies that run on this checklist close in 5 working days. Companies that wing it close in 15 days, and the books are still wrong. The difference is not talent, it is sequencing. Reconcile inventory before posting COGS, not after, or you will post the wrong number twice.
Days 1 to 2: cut-off and source documents.
On the first working day after month end, every branch confirms cut-off. No new invoices dated last month. No purchase receipts dated last month. Cash counts are done on day one, signed by the manager and one witness, photographed, and sent to head office. Inventory snapshot at day-one open is the closing stock for last month. This single step prevents 80% of close issues. If a branch tries to backdate an invoice on day three, the system rejects it because the period is locked.
Source documents to upload: bank statements (downloaded the morning of day two), supplier invoices for the month, expense vouchers, petty cash registers, customer receipts. Nonari has a checklist per branch with green/red status so head office can see at a glance which branch is behind. Branch managers chase their own gaps.
Days 2 to 3: bank reconciliation per account.
Every bank account, current and savings, gets reconciled. Statement opening balance plus deposits minus withdrawals equals statement closing balance. Each line on the statement must match an entry in the books or be flagged for investigation. Common surprises: bank charges not booked, FED on cheque issuance, profit on savings posted by the bank but not in the books, cheques in transit that cleared after month end.
Auto-match in Nonari handles 80% of the volume in seconds. The 20% that does not match is what you actually investigate. A reconciliation that ends with an unexplained $23,400 difference is not done. Either find it or post a reconciling item with a written explanation. Auditors will ask, and "we wrote it off" is not an answer.
Day 3: inter-branch transfers reconciled.
Multi-branch businesses move inventory and cash between locations. Atlanta sends 50 units to Manchester on the 15th. Manchester receives 49 on the 17th, with one damaged in transit. The two branches must agree on the variance: write off the damaged unit at the source or destination, with a memo. Similarly cash moved by armored car between branches has a date sent and date received that must reconcile.
Where this breaks: branch A has an outgoing transfer recorded; branch B has nothing. Branch B has a receipt for 51 units and branch A sent 50. Inventory inflates or deflates by the difference and COGS becomes wrong. Nonari treats inter-branch transfers as paired transactions where both sides must confirm before the entry posts to the ledger.
Day 4: inventory count and COGS.
Closing inventory drives COGS via the formula: opening + purchases - closing = COGS. If your closing inventory is wrong, your COGS is wrong, and your gross margin is wrong. Cycle counts during the month catch most variances, but a full count once a quarter, branch by branch, is non-negotiable. Even if Nonari tracks perpetual inventory with WAC per branch, physical reality wins.
Variances are investigated, not absorbed. A $78,000 unexplained shrinkage on a small branch is a cash leak, a theft, or a counting mistake. Find which one. Post the adjustment as a separate Cost of Inventory Variance line, never absorbed into regular COGS. Owner reviews the variance ledger every month.
Days 4 to 5: payroll, accruals, and prepayments.
Payroll closes by the 28th in most setups. Salaries, EOBI contributions, tax deductions, advances. The accrual for the partial month (29-31st) is calculated and posted: DR Salary Expense / CR Salaries Payable. Bonuses earned but not paid are accrued. Utility bills not yet received but consumed are estimated and accrued.
On the asset side, prepayments are amortized. A six-month rent paid in advance: 1/6 of the amount becomes rent expense each month, the rest stays prepaid. Insurance, software licenses, AMCs all follow the same logic. Skip this step and your P&L is volatile (huge expense in month one, zero for five months) when reality is steady.
- Accrue unbilled utilities at meter reading.
- Accrue staff bonuses earned not paid.
- Amortize rent, insurance, AMCs to the month.
- Reverse last-month accruals when actuals book.
- Run the prepayment schedule, not your memory.
Day 5: trial balance and management review.
Run the trial balance with all branches consolidated. Every account is reviewed for reasonableness. Cash equals counted. Bank equals reconciled. Inventory equals counted. AR aging matches AR balance. AP balance matches supplier statements (top 10 at least). Equity ties to last month plus this month profit minus drawings.
Management review is a 60-minute meeting with the owner, the accountant, and key branch managers. Not "how did the month go" but "what changed, why, and what are we doing about it." Gross margin dropped from 28% to 23%? Walk through. Receivables grew from 38 days to 51 days? Identify the customers. Branch B expense ratio jumped 8 points? Get the manager on the call.
Day 6: lock and report.
Once the owner signs off, lock the period in the system. No more posting backdated entries. Adjustments now require a journal entry into the next month with a reference to the issue. The locked period generates the management pack: P&L (consolidated and per branch), balance sheet, cash flow, AR aging, AP aging, inventory by branch, top 10 customers and suppliers. Distributed to the owner, the CFO if you have one, and the accountant.
For Nonari users, locking is one click and the management pack auto-generates from templates. For everyone else, this is the day to copy numbers into Excel templates and hope the formulas still work. Six months from now, when an auditor or a banker asks for May figures, the locked snapshot is the source of truth, not someone's memory.