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Month-end close checklist: 10 steps in Nefin
Nefin Team5 min read
Closing the month means three things: everything that happened is in the books, the books agree with the bank, and the month is locked so it can't quietly change after you've reported it. The work is the same every month, which is exactly why it belongs on a checklist.
Here are the ten steps we'd follow in Nefin, in order, and the screen that does each one.
- The October checklist starts: invoices are sent with no drafts left, and the month's supplier bills are entered.
- Payroll is approved and paid, and the bank account is reconciled to a difference of 0.00.
- VAT and the trial balance are checked: the books are balanced.
- In Settings, Fiscal periods, October 2026 is closed after a confirmation; its status changes from Open to Closed and the checklist reaches 6 of 6.
- A payment dated 28 October is then refused: the period is closed and must be reopened first.
The checklist at a glance
| Step | Where in Nefin |
|---|---|
| 1. Send the month's invoices | Invoices |
| 2. Get every supplier bill in | Bills |
| 3. Run payroll | Payroll |
| 4. Record the payments you know about | Invoices, Bills and Payments |
| 5. Reconcile every bank account | Bank Accounts |
| 6. Post your adjustments | Journal Entries |
| 7. Chase what's overdue | Reports: Accounts Receivable Aging |
| 8. Check what you owe and your VAT | Reports: Accounts Payable Aging, Tax Summary |
| 9. Review the trial balance and statements | Reports |
| 10. Close the period | Settings: Fiscal Periods |
1. Send the month's invoices
Filter the invoice list by Draft. A draft isn't in your books yet: an invoice only posts once it's sent or marked as sent. Recurring invoices create each month's invoice on schedule, as a draft unless you switched on auto-send, so check those too.
2. Get every supplier bill in
Do the same for bills. Enter the ones still sitting in your inbox (drop a supplier PDF on a new bill and Nefin's AI extraction fills it in for you to check), then activate each draft. A bill posts on its issue date, so a late-arriving October bill still lands in October as long as the month is open.
3. Run payroll
Create the month's payroll run, review each payslip, and approve it. Approving posts the salary journal. When the money goes out, record it with Pay salaries from the bank account it left, so the bank side is ready to reconcile. Payroll is included from the Professional plan up.
4. Record the payments you know about
Record receipts and payments against their invoices and bills, including part payments and a single payment that covers several invoices. If you'd rather work from the bank statement, skip ahead: step 5 books them from the statement lines.
5. Reconcile every bank account
Open each bank account and import the month's statement. Nefin suggests what each line settles, an invoice, a bill, a fee or a transfer, and you book it with a click. When nothing is unbooked and the difference is 0.00, lock the bank period. Statement import and reconciliation are included from the Professional plan up.
6. Post your adjustments
Some things no document will tell the software: an accrual for a service you've used but not been billed for, a prepaid cost spread over the months it covers, a correction to a miscoded expense. Post them as journal entries dated inside the month. If an adjustment comes back every month, save it as a template and apply it next time instead of typing it again.
7. Chase what's overdue
Run Accounts Receivable Aging to see every open invoice by how overdue it is, grouped by client if you prefer. From any open invoice you can send a payment reminder now or schedule one, and the automatic reminder rules you set up in Settings keep doing it for you.
8. Check what you owe and your VAT
Accounts Payable Aging shows which bills are due and which are late. Then run the Tax Summary for the month: VAT collected on sales against VAT paid on purchases, rate by rate. If you need a different cut, the VAT Code Report totals the codes you choose by code, rate or month.
9. Review the trial balance and statements
Run the Trial Balance for the month: it confirms that debits equal credits and shows every account's totals in one list. Then run the Profit & Loss for the month and the Balance Sheet as of its last day. If a figure looks wrong, run the General Ledger for that account and dates to see every posting behind it.
- Is revenue in line with the invoices you sent?
- Are there expenses in odd accounts, or a big one you don't recognise?
- Does the cash on the balance sheet match the bank statements you just reconciled?
- Does what customers owe match the receivables aging from step 7?
10. Close the period
Go to Settings, Fiscal Periods. Create a period for the month with a name, a start date and an end date (periods can't overlap, and a quarter or a year works the same way), then click Close and confirm. Only owners and admins can close or reopen a period.
From then on, anything dated inside the period that would post is refused: activating an invoice or bill, a payment, a journal entry, voiding a document, undoing a booked bank line. The message names the period and says what to do, for example: Cannot post to closed fiscal period "October 2026". Reopen the period first.
What lands in your books
Closing posts nothing. It creates no journal entry and moves no balance; it records who closed the period and when, and stops anything new landing inside it. The October reports you run tomorrow will read exactly the same as the ones you ran today.
