Close Overview

Close Overview is the cross-client index for automated close. It answers one question — which client needs me next? — and hands you off to the right place to do the work.

Open it from Manage Close in the workspace sidebar.

The overview deliberately does not retell what is left inside a single period. That story belongs to the Close Sheet, which you reach by clicking any row.

The summary bar

The band across the top of the page carries three figures and a priority panel. All four read the whole portfolio for the month you are viewing — typing in the search box narrows the queue below, not these numbers.

Monthly progress

A percentage with the fraction beneath it, for example 4 of 11 clients closed, plus a bar filled to the same percentage.

This counts clients, not steps and not individual periods: a client is counted once every close period it has in the selected month is complete. While the portfolio is still loading you see a dash and Loading portfolio….

Total exceptions

How many open close exceptions Kraal is holding across the portfolio.

If the figure shows a dash, Kraal does not have a count yet — a dash means not known, never zero. A red icon appears beside the number only when there is something to look at.

Portfolio status

A one-word verdict on the portfolio:

Status	What it means
Stable	Nothing in the queue is at risk, overdue, blocked, or sitting on stale documents.
Watch	Something is overdue or working from stale documents, but nothing is blocked or throwing an exception.
At risk	At least one close is blocked or has an open exception.
—	There is nothing in scope to judge — no clients and no queue rows.

A small icon carries the tone; the word itself stays in the page's normal text colour, so a busy month does not turn the whole band red.

Priority Alert

To the right of the figures, the Priority Alert panel names the single worst thing happening right now. It appears whenever any row in the queue needs attention — an open exception, a blocked close, stale documents, or an overdue period.

The headline is whichever of these applies first:

• "3 close periods need action now."
• "2 clients have stale documents that need reconciliation."
• "1 close is blocked."
• "4 closes are overdue."

A second line breaks the total down when there is more than one kind of problem, for example 2 blocked · 3 stale docs · 1 overdue.

The panel's action — Review N in queue — filters the queue below to only the rows that need attention. A chip then appears above the table reading Showing needs-attention only (N); use Clear on that chip to go back to the full queue.

When nothing needs you, the panel is replaced by a calm All clear card: "No blockers, stale documents, or overdue periods need you right now."

The close queue

Below the summary bar, Entity workflow lists your clients as one severity- ranked queue — worst first. There are no filter tabs to choose between; the queue is the whole picture and you narrow it with the search box or the needs-attention filter.

Each row carries six columns.

Client

The client's initials, its name (a link into the client), and a muted sub-line describing scope:

• Consolidation — the client closes more than one entity.
• The entity name, Operating entity, or Client-wide close — for a single-scope client.

When a client has several periods or entities in flight, a progress phrase joins the sub-line: 1 of 3 open periods closed, or 2 of 4 entities closed.

Close period

The month this row is really about, written as May 2026 close. For a client that is catching up, this is the oldest open month, not the month you are browsing — so the queue always points you at the month that must be finished first.

A second line appears only when the due date is genuinely a signal: the due date plus an Overdue or Due soon chip. Rows with nothing to say about timing show nothing, rather than filling the cell with "no due date". The date these chips judge is the resolved close deadline — the period's own due date if one was set, otherwise the client's package due day, otherwise the firm default — so the overview and the Daily Board always agree about what is overdue.

Status & aging

The close period's current status — Gathering Documents, Running Tasks, Reconciling Accounts, Pending Review, Pending Final Approval, Ready, Blocked, Not Started, Closed, Locked, or Cancelled.

If the client's source documents have gone stale, a red Stale · Nd chip sits above the status, where N is how many days old the newest data is.

Catch-up queue

Small circles, one per older month that is still open, each labelled with the month's short name — FEB, MAR, APR. Up to five circles show; anything beyond that collapses into a +N circle.

The first circle turns red when that client is the one in trouble (an open exception or stale documents); the rest stay neutral. Hover the group to see the span, for example 6 mo · Feb–Aug. Clicking anywhere on the group opens the oldest catch-up period — the one you have to clear first.

A client with nothing to catch up shows None pending.

For how catch-up periods get created in the first place, see Historical Close Catch-Up.

Documents

Whether the client's paperwork is in:

• N missing — that many requested documents have not arrived.
• N blocked — that many close items are blocked.
• Ready — nothing outstanding.

Action center

Up to three controls, in order of urgency:

1. Fix — appears only on rows with an open exception, and takes you straight to the close period holding the blocker.
2. The next real step — labelled for the status it acts on: Review & finalize, Resume close, Open close, or View close for a period that is already finished. This opens the client's Close Sheet.
3. More actions (⋮) — currently one entry, Let Kraal drive this close, which hands the period to the AI assistant. Approval-required work still waits for a person; see AI Playbooks.

If a client has no close period created yet, the button is inactive and clicking the row tells you so: "This close period hasn't been created yet. Start it from the client to drill in." Create the period from the client's close setup — see Client Setup & Close Workflow.

Entity rows sit inside the queue

A multi-entity client is no longer hidden behind an expander. Its entities are listed directly underneath the client's own row, indented one level, so you can see the whole group at a glance and act on any one entity without opening anything first.

An entity row shows:

• the entity's name, with Client name · Entity close beneath it;
• its own status, its own Overdue / Due soon chip, and its own document readiness;
• its own selection checkbox.

Entity rows do not carry catch-up circles or a stale-documents chip — those belong to the client rollup above them. Clicking an entity row opens that entity's Close Sheet, scoped to that entity's period.

Sorting keeps groups together: entities sort worst-first inside their client's block, and the blocks themselves sort worst-first, so an entity never drifts away from the client it belongs to.

Consolidation, elimination, and intercompany behaviour are unchanged — see Multi-Entity & Intercompany.

Narrowing the queue

• Search matches client and entity names. It narrows the table only; the summary bar keeps reporting the whole portfolio.
• Review N in queue (from the Priority Alert) filters to rows that need attention. Clear the chip to undo it.
• The footer shows Showing 12 of 27 active clients with a View all 27 clients toggle, and tells you how many clients are on track and therefore not competing for your attention.
• Finished periods for the month move into the collapsed Closed periods archive at the bottom of the page, so they leave the working queue without becoming unreachable.

If the queue cannot load, the page says Close data unavailable with the reason and a Try Again button.

Running work across several clients

Tick the checkbox on one or more rows (client rollups or individual entities) and the Bulk close orchestrator panel appears above the queue: "Run close work across selected clients."

Three actions:

Action	What it does
Run readiness	Checks each selected period's lock gates. Read-only.
Auto-post safe JEs	Proposes the routine entries that are safe to post automatically.
Lock passing	Locks only the clients that pass every gate.

The two mutating actions always run as a preview first. You get a banner — "Preview ready: 4 can proceed, 2 need review." — and nothing changes until you press Confirm. Partial failures are reported per client rather than collapsing the whole run.

Reading the verdicts

Each selected client comes back as a card. The verdict says exactly what was checked, so a green result can never imply more than it tested:

Action	Passing	Not passing
Run readiness	Lock gates passing	Not ready
Auto-post safe JEs (preview)	Safe JEs ready	None eligible
Auto-post safe JEs (confirmed)	JEs posted	None eligible
Lock passing (preview)	Ready to lock	Blocked
Lock passing (confirmed)	Locked	Blocked

Lock gates passing is worded that way on purpose. It means the period's lock gates pass — it does not mean the client's documents are all in. Document collection is a separate dimension, reported on the same card.

Reading the result card

Each card carries:

• the client's name;
• the verdict;
• the close engine's own message for that client, or a plain note when there is no detail to show;
• document readiness, written as 3/12 docs in · 9 missing (amber) or 12/12 docs in (green). This sits right beside the verdict so a passing gate can never hide missing paperwork;
• proposed journal entries, when the run produced any, with a pointer to the shared review queue.

Document readiness appears only when the close engine reports those counts for that client; a card without the line is not a claim that nothing is missing.

Troubleshooting

• The summary numbers don't match my search results — they are not supposed to. Search narrows the table; the summary bar always describes the whole portfolio for the month in view.
• Total exceptions shows a dash — Kraal does not have a count yet. Refresh the page; a dash is never a stand-in for zero.
• A row's close period is an older month than the one I'm browsing — that client is catching up, and the queue points at the oldest open month deliberately. Clear it before the later months will advance.
• Clicking a row does nothing — the client has no close period created for that month yet. Generate the close schedule from the client's close setup.
• A client passed readiness but still has missing documents — expected. Readiness checks lock gates only; use the document readiness count on the result card, or the Documents column in the queue.
• I can't find the entity matrix expander — it was retired. Entity rows now sit inline in the queue underneath their client.

Related guides

• The Close Sheet — working a single close period, including the package due date.
• Client Setup & Close Workflow — close templates, close schedules, and catch-up.
• Close Items in Depth — what each automated close item computes.
• Reconciliation Hub — account-level evidence, differences, exceptions, signoffs, and close gates.