Close settings and custom checklist items
Almost everything about the close is fixed: the checks that run, the order they run in, and whether each one blocks or warns. A short list is not. This page covers the three tolerances the checks measure against, the one check severity you can change, your own custom checklist items, and one setting that is regularly mistaken for a close setting — and says for each one whether you can change it yourself or have to ask us.
Of the settings on this page, only Block period close while debt is outstanding and the Soft-close grace window have a screen you can open. The three tolerances and the custom checklist items are configured for you by SKU.io support. There is no settings path for them, so don't go looking for one.
The tolerances the close checks use
Three checks compare a number against a limit rather than demanding an exact match. Each limit has a default, and each is an amount in your accounting currency.
| Tolerance | Default | The check it governs | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inventory-to-GL divergence limit | 1.00 | Inventory reconciled to GL | The month's total inventory-versus-provider gap must come in at or under this. The row quotes it back at you when it fails: 842.10 divergence (limit 1.00). |
| Provider document variance tolerance | 0.05 | Provider documents reconciled | The month's document-by-document variance between SKU.io and your provider must come in at or under this. |
| Per-account trial balance variance tolerance | 0.00 | Trial balance reconciled to provider | Applied to each mapped account separately. At the default of zero, any difference at all on any account warns. |
Three things worth knowing about them.
They are absolute amounts, not percentages. A limit of 1.00 is one unit of currency, whatever the size of the balance underneath it. The inventory limit's default exists to absorb rounding, not to grant real slack.
The trial balance tolerance can never make that check blocking. Trial balance reconciled to provider is a warning at every setting of it. Raising the tolerance makes it warn less often; lowering it makes it warn more often; neither can turn it into something that refuses your close. Start at the default and tune upward only from experience of what your own books actually do.
Nothing else is adjustable. No other check has a threshold, and no check's severity is configurable — with the single exception of inventory debt, below. A check that blocks, blocks for everybody. See what stops a close, and what only needs a tick.
Changing a tolerance
None of these three appears on any settings screen in SKU.io today. To change one, contact SKU.io support with the tolerance you want and the figure you want it set to. The new value takes effect at the next Re-check — it is read fresh each time the checklist is evaluated, so you don't need to restart a close for it to apply.
Changing a tolerance changes only whether a row passes. It never changes the underlying figures, and it never changes anything in your reports.
Block period close while debt is outstanding
This is the one close-related setting with a screen of its own. Find it at Settings → Inventory → Inventory Debt, as the toggle Block period close while debt is outstanding. It is on by default.
It controls the severity of a single checklist row — Inventory debt settled — and nothing else.
On (default). The row carries the Blocking chip. While any inventory
debt incurred in the month is still outstanding, Close period stays
disabled and the close is refused. There is exactly one way past it: somebody
holding the accounting.period.override permission closes over it and records
why. The reason is stored with the month, alongside the exposure as it stood at
that moment. Everyone else has to settle the debt first.
Inventory debt settled is the only one of the four blocking checks that offers a way through at all. The other three — All entries balanced, Ledger generation — individual entries and Opening balance applied — refuse the close for everybody, at every permission level. See what stops a close, and what only needs a tick.
Off. The same row becomes a warning. It still fails, still states the exposure in the same words — 3 still owed · 409.75 in clearing — and still has to be acknowledged in the close dialog like every other outstanding item. What changes is that no override permission is involved: whoever runs the close can accept it. The item is stamped Acknowledged at close on the frozen checklist.
Turning it off does not hide anything, and it does not settle anything. It moves a judgement from "only these people may sign for this" to "whoever closes the month signs for it".
For the walkthrough, see close over outstanding inventory debt. For what the row is actually measuring, see inventory and the close.
Adding your own checklist items
Every business has month-end work that SKU.io knows nothing about — accruing a freight invoice, emailing the pack to the client, agreeing a payroll journal. You can have those added to the close checklist as custom items, so they are on the same list as everything else and have to be dealt with before the month closes.
The demo tenant's checklist shows two of them:
5. CUSTOM
0/2
Accrue freight invoices not yet billed
Email the close pack to the client
What each item is made of
An item is set up with three things: a short identifier of its own, the title that appears on the checklist, and — optionally — a line of description shown underneath the title. Only the title and description are ever visible on screen. An entry set up without an identifier, or without a title, is ignored entirely and never appears.
Where they appear
Custom items collect in their own Custom group at the bottom of the checklist, below Sign-off, in the order they were configured. The group carries its own progress count in the same style as every other group — 0/2 above — and it feeds the overall count in the header. The built-in part of the list is always seventeen rows — fourteen automated checks and three review items — so a business with no custom items reads 4/17 complete where the demo tenant, with two of them, reads 4/19.
They are manual items, like the three built-in review items. There is nothing for SKU.io to evaluate, so nothing changes them except you ticking the box. See how the close checklist works.
When items are added to a month
- Every month you start a close on gets the full set of custom items as they are configured at that moment.
- An item added later is appended to any month that is still in review, at its next Re-check. You don't have to restart the close to pick it up.
- A closed month never gains items. Its checklist is frozen as part of the close, so an item configured afterward does not appear on it — and does not reopen a question you have already signed off.
When items are removed
Removing an item's configuration stops it being added to months from then on. It does not reach back:
- A month that already has the item keeps it, in whatever state it was in.
- A month that has already closed keeps it on its frozen checklist forever.
And nothing ever un-ticks an item. If you tick Email the close pack to the client and the item is later reworded or removed, the tick stands. That is the point of an audit trail — it records what somebody actually did, not what the configuration says today.
Custom items and the close
An unticked custom item behaves exactly like an unticked review item: it does not block the close, but it does have to be acknowledged. It appears in the close dialog in the same form as the built-in ones —
Accrue freight invoices not yet billed — not checked off
— with a tick box beside it, and Close June 2026 stays disabled until every box is ticked. Acknowledged items are stamped Acknowledged at close on the frozen checklist.
There is no way to make a custom item blocking.
Changing your custom items
There is no settings screen for custom checklist items today. To add, reword, reorder or remove one, contact SKU.io support with the titles you want and the order you want them in. Bear the timing rules above in mind: a change reaches months still in review at their next Re-check, and never reaches a month that is already closed.
The soft-close grace window is a separate thing
The Soft-close grace window sounds like a close setting and is often mistaken for one. It is not. It changes nothing about the close checklist, the close itself, or the lock — it changes which month a late supplier invoice accrues to. For why you would want one behaviour over the other, see cost changes still awaiting a decision.
| Where | Settings → Inventory → Cost Change Policies, in the Soft-close grace window card |
| Field | Days after a month ends, a number with a days suffix |
| Default | 0 |
| What reads it | Only a cost-change cause set to Restate only inside the soft-close window under Which month the cost lands in, on the same screen |
| Saving | Staged behind Save Changes / Discard, like everything else on that screen |
What a number does. Set a number of days and an invoice that arrives within that many days of a month's end is recorded in the month the goods were received; one that arrives later is recorded in the month it is dated.
Zero means off, not "a zero-day window". At the default of 0 the mechanism is turned off outright, and the screen says so under the field: Off. A late invoice is recorded in the month it is dated, which is what SKU does today.
It does not unlock anything. The screen states this directly: This does not unlock anything. A month past your accounting lock date stays locked, and a cost pushed back into it is still moved to the first open day. Closing a month is what sets that lock — see what closing does to your books.
A rule set to use a window that is off does nothing, and the screen says so. Set a cause to Restate only inside the soft-close window while the field is still 0 and an amber warning appears above it: A rule above is set to restate only inside the soft-close window, but that window is currently off (0 days). Until you set a number of days below, those costs are carried forward.