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Run Month-End Close
App path: Manage Close or a client-specific close period.
Use this scenario when a CPA needs to close a month, produce reviewable financials, and preserve evidence.
Goal
The month moves from open work to reviewed package and lock-ready state, with blockers, overrides, skipped tasks, and generated reports visible to the reviewer.
Before you start
- Confirm earlier months are closed or intentionally deferred.
- Confirm bank, balance-sheet reconciliation, AR, AP, transaction, inventory, and source-data issues are not silently blocking the month.
- Confirm the client and entity scope is correct.
Close checklist
- Open Manage Close.
- Select the client and month.
- If a catch-up banner appears, start with the earliest open period.
- Open the close period.
- Read Close status and next action. Confirm who owns the current step and why it outranks later work.
- Review Client inputs. Accept responses that satisfy the requirement and request replacements for those that do not; arrival alone does not clear the close.
- Open the linked Reconciliation Hub. Confirm every material account is covered, current, explained, and signed as required. Repair source or calculation problems at the input, then rerun.
- Clear the remaining required work:
- bank statements;
- bank reconciliation;
- balance-sheet reconciliation coverage and current support;
- transaction categorization;
- AR/AP review;
- trial balance review;
- inventory close gates, if the client has inventory;
- source-health blockers.
- Run allowed automation.
- Review anything skipped, blocked, or flagged. If a material issue appears after reconciliation or close approval, return or reopen the work for revision and obtain fresh signoff.
- Build the candidate financial package from the current evidence.
- Submit the exact evidence set and package for review, then complete final approval.
- Lock and finalize the period only after review is complete and overrides are documented. A separate Lock books only control is a posting lock, not a substitute for the full close sequence.
- Check the package gate before sending. If the package is Stale or Superseded, regenerate and repeat the required review so the client receives the version that matches the finalized books.
If a delivered month later needs a correction, note that a locked period blocks reposting and reopening it is not self-serve — contact your Kraal administrator or support to have the period reopened. Once it is reopened, post the fix, re-close, then regenerate and re-deliver the package — the reopen marks the old package stale on purpose. See Package stale.
Override guidance
Some warnings should initially block the close but allow an accountant override. Use overrides only when:
- the issue is understood;
- the financial impact is immaterial or separately documented;
- the reason is recorded;
- the client or reviewer can see the evidence later.
Do not override missing source data just to make the dashboard green.
What good looks like
- The close page shows what Kraal did, what remains, and what is blocked.
- Every material balance-sheet subject is reconciled, manually certified, or explicitly unresolved; none disappears from the coverage view.
- Reviewers can see skipped-by-policy and blocked reason codes.
- Financial package generation is marked draft until reviewed.
- Arrived client responses remain outstanding until the firm accepts them as evidence.
- Every material reconciliation is covered, current, and signed—or explicitly unresolved and blocking.
- No delivered package carries a Stale badge — anything the books moved past has been regenerated and re-sent.
- The Close Binder records which package version it embedded, so a delivered binder is traceable even after later regenerations.
- Close evidence ties back to source documents and reports.
- The locked period has a clear audit trail, including the archived close pack snapshot.