Process & Controls
Fixing the month-end close and the controls around it, so the same errors stop coming back.
Most recurring accounting problems are process problems. The same errors get corrected every month because nothing upstream changed. Work gets done twice. Someone spends an afternoon looking for a document. The close takes three weeks because it lives in one person’s head.
Process work looks at how the accounting runs today: how transactions get into the ledger, how the close happens, who checks what, and what’s written down. When it’s done, the close runs the same way each month and someone else could follow the steps.
What This Typically Involves
- Month-end close redesigned, in a defined order
- Approval checkpoints sized to the team
- Reconciliation standards and who reviews them
- Written procedures that survive turnover
- Automation identified once the process is sound
Signs This Is the Right Work
- The month-end close takes weeks, or has no defined end at all
- One person holds the whole process in their head, and the books wait when they are out
- The same errors are corrected every month because nothing upstream was changed
- The owner approves payments without anyone else seeing the bank activity
- Reconciliations are performed but never reviewed
- A key employee is leaving, and nothing is written down
What You End Up With
- A month-end close that runs in a defined order and finishes on a date the business can count on
- A clear view of which steps are worth automating, and which should simply stop
The Close, Redesigned
A close that takes three weeks, depends on one person’s memory, and produces statements nobody trusts is a process problem. It isn’t a people problem. The redesign covers the order the work happens in, the reconciliations that prove each balance, the review points that catch errors early, and written steps that let someone else run it.
The goal is a close that finishes on a date you can count on, with the same quality of statements no matter who does the work.
Internal Controls for a Small Business
In a small business, internal controls aren’t a compliance exercise. They’re a few checks that keep errors and losses from going unnoticed. The person who approves a payment isn’t the one who sends it. Someone besides the bookkeeper looks at the bank activity. Someone reviews the reconciliations after they’re done. A two-person office can’t separate every duty, so the controls lean on review instead.
Process First, Then Systems
Software rarely fixes a process problem by itself, and automating a broken process makes it a fast broken process. Process work comes first. Automation and system changes come after. If the review shows the records themselves can’t be trusted, reconstruction comes before any of it.
Some businesses need the redesign and nothing else. Others want someone to keep it running, and for them the work can continue as fractional controller support.
Who This Is For
- Companies with a slow, manual, or unreliable month-end close
- Growing businesses whose accounting has not kept pace with operations
When This May Not Be Necessary
A business whose close finishes on time, whose reconciliations are reviewed, and whose procedures are written down does not need a process engagement. If the close is fine and the records underneath it are not, the work is accounting reconstruction. If the process is sound but slow, the answer is automation, not a redesign.