The first working day of a month
Monthly close checklist
A monthly close checklist is the ordered list of checks that make a month final: refunds booked to their own days, ad spend taken from billing, fees reconciled against payouts, overhead spread, stock counted. Working through it means last month stops changing while you are looking at it.
The file
nouz-monthly-close-checklist.csv · 6 columns · one example row
The purpose of a close is not tidiness, it is stability. A month that keeps moving after it ends cannot be compared with the one before it, and a store that cannot compare months is steering by feel. Most of the movement comes from three habits: refunds booked backwards, ad spend read from attribution rather than billing, and overhead landing as a lump on whichever day the invoice arrived.
Which is why the order matters. Revenue and refunds first, because everything below is measured against net revenue. Then the variable costs an order caused, then the fixed block spread across the days it covered. Following the same sequence as the statement means each check confirms the line above it, and the P&L statement, block by block explains why that order is the one to follow.
Two of the eleven steps are worth doing even when nothing else is: reconcile one day of payouts against its orders, and count the stock of your top ten SKUs. The first catches fee changes and missing transactions; the second catches the shrinkage that quietly raises the cost of everything you did sell.
How to use it
- 01Work down the file in step order on the first two working days of the month.
- 02Do the revenue checks first: cancelled and test orders out, refunds on their own days.
- 03Take ad spend from each platform's billing page, never from its attributed revenue.
- 04Spread the month's fixed costs across its days rather than booking them as a lump.
- 05Mark each row done, and note anything that moved a closed month: that is the finding worth keeping.
What is inside
| Row | step | task | source | owner | due_day | done |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | Book last month's ad spend from each platform's billing page | Meta, Google, TikTok billing | founder | 2 | no |
| 2 | ||||||
| 3 |
Every column, explained
| step | The order to work in; the sequence follows the statement. |
|---|---|
| task | What to check, written as a single action. |
| source | Where the number comes from, so nobody hunts twice. |
| owner | Who does it, when that is not always the same person. |
| due_day | Working day of the new month it should be done by. |
| done | yes or no, so the file doubles as this month's record. |