Verify a closed month
Closing a month freezes its report pack as the month's numbers of record. Verify rebuilds every one of those reports from today's data and compares it, figure by figure, against the copy saved at close — so you can prove a month you signed off still says what it said, and see exactly what moved when it doesn't.
Before you begin
- The month must be Closed. Verify sits on the closed-month banner, next to Reopen…, and nowhere else — there is no way to reach it from an open month. If someone reopens the month elsewhere while your screen still shows the closed banner, Verify answers Verify runs on closed periods only.
- Verify reads and compares only. It posts nothing, changes no figure, and never touches the copies saved at close, so you can run it as often as you like — at audit time, before filing, or whenever someone asks whether the month still ties out.
- You need access to Accounting → Close. Verify needs no extra permission beyond that — unlike closing or reopening.
Steps
- Go to Accounting → Close.
- In the Periods rail, select the closed month. Its banner reads June 2026 is closed with a Locked chip, above the sign-off line — Closed by Administrator · 09/12/2026, 13:57:23.
- Click Verify. SKU.io rebuilds all nine reports and compares each one to its close copy.
- Read the coloured summary that appears under the banner, then work down the per-report lines beneath it.
Results stay on screen until you leave the month. Selecting another month in the Periods rail clears them, so run Verify again on each month you want to prove.
Read the summary
The summary line is the verdict for the whole month.
- Green — No drift — every authoritative report that could be compared still matches its close snapshot. Informational reports may change as reconciliation continues.
- Amber — Drift detected — one or more reports no longer match their close snapshot (informational changes, e.g. reconciliation, are excluded).
If any report could not be produced, the count is added to the end of whichever verdict applies, in the same sentence: 1 report could not be produced, so it was not verified. — or, for more than one, 3 reports could not be produced, so they were not verified.
That note turns the summary amber on its own, even with nothing drifted — so a green summary always means every report was actually compared, never that some were skipped.
Read each report line
Every report in the pack gets a line, whether or not anything moved.
| The verdict | What it means | Counts as drift |
|---|---|---|
| matches | The report rebuilt today is identical to the copy saved at close, to the cent. | No |
| drifted | A headline figure on an authoritative report has moved since close. | Yes |
| changed (informational) | A reconciliation report has moved. Expected — see below. | No |
| could not be produced | The report could not be built, at close or now, so there was nothing to compare. Shown in grey with a short note explaining why. | No — counted separately |
| snapshot missing | No copy of this report was saved at close. Shown in red. | Yes |
Comparison is exact. Both sides are rounded to cents first and then matched with no tolerance at all, so a one-cent movement in a signed-off month is reported as drift rather than absorbed as rounding noise. That is Verify's own comparison, and it is nothing to do with the tolerances the close checks measure against — those have their own defaults, and can be changed for you. See close settings and custom checklist items.
Read a drifted report
Each drifted report carries its own small table, directly under that report's line, naming every figure that moved. The columns are Figure, At close, and Live now:
Balance Sheet — drifted
| Figure | At close | Live now |
|---|---|---|
| Total Assets | 28,558.58 | 30,058.58 |
Trial Balance — drifted
| Figure | At close | Live now |
|---|---|---|
| Total Debits | 34,458.02 | 35,958.02 |
| Total Closing | 0.00 | 1,500.00 |
Reports that match get a line and no table.
Only headline totals are compared, so the table tells you that the month moved and by how much, not which entry did it. To find the cause, open the drifted report from the Report pack and work down from the total, or review the ledger for entries dated in the month that were created after the close timestamp on the banner.
Drift on a closed month means something changed behind the lock — most often a data repair, a correction applied outside the normal posting path, or a figure that was recalculated after the fact. The lock stops ordinary entries from posting into a closed month, so Verify is the backstop that catches everything the lock did not.
Reconciliation figures are expected to change
Three of the nine reports are informational, because reconciliation work carries on long after a month is signed off:
- Reconciliation Summary
- Trial Balance Reconciliation
- Sync Category Reconciliation
When one of these moves, its line reads changed (informational) and the month-level verdict is untouched. Matching two more entries against your provider next week is progress, not a restatement.
The other six — Income Statement, Balance Sheet, Trial Balance, Inventory Valuation, COGS, and GINR Balance — are the authoritative statements. Movement in any of them is real drift and turns the summary amber.
Without that split, every Verify run on a business that is still reconciling would report drift, and the signal would be worth nothing.
A report with no saved copy
Verify walks the full set of nine reports, not only the copies that exist. A report with no copy from the close is flagged snapshot missing, in red, and counts as drift — so an incomplete pack can never quietly verify.
A missing copy is not a comparison failure — it means the month has no saved figure of record for that report at all, which is worth resolving before anyone relies on the pack. Close the month again to take a complete set. See what closing does to your books.
A report Verify could not compare
A report that cannot be built — at close, now, or both — is flagged could not be produced, in grey, with a short note underneath giving the reason. It is counted separately from drift.
That separation is deliberate: a report with no numbers cannot have drifted, but folding it into a clean result would claim an agreement that was never established. So the count appears in the summary, and the summary goes amber. Treat those reports as unverified and run Verify again once the underlying problem clears.
If Verify itself fails
When the check cannot run at all, an error message appears in place of the results with a Retry button. Verify only reads and compares, so retrying is always safe.
Verify leaves no record
A Verify run is a read, and nothing about it is kept:
- Nothing is written to the month. No checklist item is ticked, no stamp is added to the banner, and the sign-off line is untouched.
- The result is not in the exported pack. The workbook carries the cover sheet, the checklist outcomes, and one sheet per report — there is no verification sheet, and the report sheets hold the figures saved at close, not today's comparison.
- The results clear the moment you select another month, and they are gone on your next visit. Running Verify twice on the same month tells you nothing about the first run.
So when a clean result has to be evidenced — an auditor asking whether the month still ties out — capture it as you run it: screenshot or print the summary and the report lines while they are on screen, and date the capture. For the figures themselves, export the close pack: that is the durable copy of what the month was signed off at, and a later Verify compares against exactly those numbers.
What to do about real drift
- Note the figures from the At close and Live now columns — they are the before and after of whatever changed.
- Decide whether the month's numbers of record should change. If the closed figures are still the ones you filed and reported on, leave them: the frozen copies are the record, and Verify has done its job by telling you the live books have moved on.
- If the month genuinely needs restating, reopen it, make the correction, and close it again — closing takes a fresh set of figures as the new numbers of record.
- Either way, export the close pack so you keep a copy of what the month looked like at each sign-off.
Next steps
- Frozen figures and drift — what gets frozen at close and why it can move afterwards.
- Read the close reports — what each of the nine reports contains.
- Reopen a closed month — unlock a month so corrections can post into it.
- Statuses in the close — Open, In Review, Closing, and Closed.