Close a month

Closing a month is the moment you say these are June's numbers. SKU.io walks you through it: a checklist that grades the month's data, a dialog that records what you knew when you signed, and a lock that stops anything new posting into a month you have already reported on.

Before you begin

• Finish accounting setup. The Close tab does not appear until a chart of accounts exists — the setup wizard owns the Accounting page until then.
• Close months oldest first. Only the earliest month that is not yet closed can be closed; every later month waits its turn. See which months you can close.
• You need permission to run close actions, and permission to close or reopen a period. Without them the buttons are disabled and the tooltip says so — You do not have permission to run close actions. or You do not have permission to close or reopen a period. See who can do what.
• Give the month a few days. A monthly batch has a 72-hour settle window after the month ends, so June's is not due until the start of July 4. Close from the 4th onward and what is left on the checklist is a genuine exception rather than work that has not come due — see batches and the close.
• Quiet months still get closed. Closes run oldest-first, so an empty month has to be closed to reach the ones with trading in them. It is quick: a check that finds nothing prints no summary beside its title at all.

Steps

1. Go to Accounting → Close. The page opens on the month currently up for closing — the earliest one that is not yet closed.
2. Check you are on the right month. Its name, status and date range sit at the top of the page: for example June 2026, Open, Jun 1, 2026 – Jun 30, 2026. To work a different month, click it in the Periods rail on the left — see what's on the Close tab for everything a rail row tells you.
3. Read the Close checklist before you start. Every check is already evaluated as a preview, so you can see what the month is walking into. The progress ring in the month header reads 4/19 — the items needing no further action, out of the month's total — and the card header spells the same figure out as 4/19 complete. The total is seventeen built-in rows (fourteen automated checks and three review items) plus however many custom items your business has added, so it differs from one account to the next; the nineteen here includes two custom ones. A red 3 blocking chip beside the month name counts the checks that will refuse the close.
4. Click Start close. The checklist is saved against the month, every automated check runs, and the status changes to In Review. A Re-check button appears beside Export pack, and Start close is replaced by Close period.
5. Work through anything carrying a red Blocking chip. Red means the check is failing, and a failing blocking check refuses the close outright — for example All entries balanced with 2 unbalanced, or Ledger generation — individual entries with 6 outstanding — 2 failed, 4 pending. Click the arrow at the right of the row — hovering it says Open the fixing surface — to open the exact records the count refers to, and fix them there. A row whose figure comes from one of the month's reports carries a document icon and Open this report instead. See fix a failing check.
6. Come back to Close and click Re-check to re-run every automated check against the books as they now stand. The checklist and the counters refresh — 4/19 climbs as rows clear — and the 3 blocking chip disappears once nothing blocking is failing.
7. Tick the manual items you have done. Items under Review, Sign-off and Custom — Review Income Statement, Provider lock aligned, Email the close pack to the client — are yours to confirm; ticking one stamps your name and the date under its title and advances the counters.
8. Click Close period. It stays disabled while anything blocking is still failing, and the tooltip tells you how many: 3 blocking failures must be resolved before this period can close.
9. In the Close June 2026 dialog, tick every acknowledgement. Each remaining warning-level check and each unticked manual item gets its own box under Acknowledge each outstanding item to close the period with it unresolved:. Manual items are labelled — not checked off. The close button stays disabled until all of them are ticked. See what's on the Close tab for every panel the dialog can show.
10. Add Close notes (optional) if this month needs context — accruals you made, a known issue, something the client should read next quarter.
11. Read the note at the foot of the dialog, which spells out what you are about to do: Closing locks the period at Jun 30, 2026: new entries can no longer post on or before that date, and the report pack is snapshotted as the month's numbers of record.
12. Click CLOSE JUNE 2026. The dialog closes and a message confirms the close has begun — Closing June 2026 — track progress in the job tray.
13. Wait for the job to finish. The month shows a spinner and Closing…, and an on-screen note explains: The close job is running — progress shows in the job tray. The checklist re-validates, the report pack snapshots, then the period locks. The page refreshes itself when the job completes.
14. Read the green sign-off panel: June 2026 is closed, with a Locked chip, who closed it and when. The month's status is now Closed, the header adds books locked through Jun 30, 2026, and the report pack changes from Preliminary — period open to As at close.

The current month is listed, but won't open

The Periods rail runs up to the month you are in, and that last row is the exception to "click any row". Selecting it replaces the detail pane with a red message — Period 2026-09 is in the future. — and a Retry button that produces the same message again. Work on months that have already ended.

Before you press Start close

A month nobody has started shows the whole checklist as a live preview: every automated check is evaluated as you look at it, nothing is saved, and the manual tick boxes are inert — hovering one says Start the close to check items off. Pressing Start close runs the same checks again and saves them against the month as the close's own evidence. See how the close checklist works.

Ticking manual items off — and back on

Manual items are the judgement calls SKU.io cannot make: reviewing the statements, aligning the lock in your accounting provider, and any Custom items your business has added.

• To tick one off, click its box. Your name and the date appear under the title — Dana · Jul 16 — and the group counter and the month counter both advance.
• To un-tick it, click the box again. The item goes back to its unticked state and the record of who ticked it is cleared, so the next person to tick it is the one on the record.
• Automated checks cannot be ticked. They have an icon rather than a box; the only way to move one is to fix what it is measuring and click Re-check.
• A closed or closing month is read-only. Hovering a box says This period is closed — the checklist is read-only. Reopen the month if you need to change anything — see reopen a closed month.

What the close records

Acknowledging is "I know about this and I am closing anyway". It is not a fix and it resolves nothing.

• Every warning-level check still flagged, and every manual item still unticked, gets its own box in the dialog. All of them must be ticked before CLOSE JUNE 2026 becomes available; until then the tooltip reads "Tick every acknowledgement above to confirm you're closing with these items outstanding."
• Each box names the item and adds the check's count in brackets where it has one — Entries synced (4) — so you are acknowledging a specific exposure. For the full summary — 842.10 divergence (limit 1.00) — read the row on the checklist behind the dialog.
• After the close, every acknowledged row carries the stamp Acknowledged at close, and the exported close pack lists the same rows with Yes in the Acknowledged column of its Cover sheet.
• Acknowledgements belong to the close that took them. Reopening a month clears them, because a warning may well be resolved before you close again.

Close notes (optional) is free text for anything worth recording with the close — the placeholder suggests accruals made, known issues, client context. Keep a note under 2,000 characters; a longer one is refused when you submit the close. Notes appear on the green sign-off panel afterwards, labelled Notes:, and print on the cover sheet of the exported close pack. Leaving the box empty is fine.

While the close is running

Closing is not instant — the checks all run again and nine reports are built and frozen — so SKU.io hands the work to a background job and lets you watch it.

• In the job tray, the job is called Close Accounting Period: 2026-06. It reports re-checking first, then either success — closed, reports snapshotted and the period is locked — or the real reason it stopped.
• On the page, the month shows a spinner and Closing… in both the rail and the header. The checklist is read-only and Close period is disabled; hovering it says "The close job is already running — track it in the job tray."
• When the job finishes, the page refreshes itself — you do not need to reload.
• A close is allowed up to 15 minutes before it is timed out. A month with a very large ledger takes longer than a quiet one, so give it time before assuming something is wrong.
• Only one close runs at a time, and while one is running no month can be reopened either — the attempt is refused with "A period close is running — wait for it to finish before reopening."

A close either completes or leaves no trace. If the job stops for any reason — a check that failed on the final re-run, a worker that died, a cancellation from the job tray — no lock is applied, no reports are frozen and no sign-off is recorded, and the month returns to In Review rather than sitting on Closing…. A cancellation that arrives in the last moments may be too late to land, so check the month's status afterwards rather than assuming: if it reads Closed, the close won the race.

The sign-off record

Once a month is closed, a green panel sits above the checklist and stays there: the heading June 2026 is closed with a Locked chip, who closed it and when (Closed by Administrator · 09/12/2026, 13:57:23), your close notes after Notes:, and any earlier reopen with the reason it was given.

It carries the two things you can still do to a closed month:

• Verify recomputes every report live and compares it with what you signed off.
• Reopen… unlocks the month, with a mandatory reason. It is disabled on anything but the most recently closed month — "Only the latest closed period can be reopened — reopen later months first."

If the close is refused

The dialog stays open on a refusal, so you can correct the attempt and try again without re-typing anything, and the message names the cause — a blocking check that failed on the final re-run, an item that became outstanding while the dialog was open, an earlier month still to close, or a close already running. Every refusal message, and what to do about each, is in fix a failing check.

Next steps

• Verify a closed month — prove the frozen figures still match what you signed off.
• Export the close pack — the workbook to hand your accountant or your client.
• What closing does to your books — what the lock stops, everywhere else in SKU.io.
• What's on the Close tab — the rail, the header, the dialogs and the panels, field by field.
• Reopen a closed month — if a late bill has to post into a month you already closed.
• Review the ledger — the entries behind every figure the close grades.

Video transcript

Month end close gives you one place per calendar month. Under Accounting, open Close. It gathers the checks, the reports and the sign-off that a month end needs, so you are not visiting five different screens to work out whether the books are ready. Every month is listed newest first, with how far through its checklist you are, and the one whose turn it is next is marked.

The checklist is grouped the way a close runs: data completeness first, then sync and reconciliation, then review, then sign-off. A row marked Blocking has to be resolved. Everything else you can close over, as long as you record that you knew.

Starting the close runs every automated check against the books as they stand, and moves the month into review. You can run the checks again at any point while you work.

Rows that are not blocking still want your attention. Each one summarises what it found, and its arrow opens exactly the records behind that number, so you can look before you decide to sign the month off anyway.

Close period opens the sign-off. Anything still outstanding, whether a warning or a manual item you have not ticked, gets its own acknowledgement. Acknowledging records that you closed with the item unresolved. It does not fix the underlying problem.

Closing locks the period. New entries can no longer post on or before the month end, and the reports are saved as the numbers of record for that month, frozen exactly as you signed them off. Signing off hands everything to a background job rather than making you wait here, and the job tray follows its progress.

The month now shows who closed it and when, its reports are marked as at close rather than preliminary, and two actions appear: Verify, which proves the figures still match what you signed off, and Reopen, for the times a month has to take one more entry.