Monthly Management Reports Checklist

Verify the close date is set in QuickBooks Online / Xero / Sage Intacct with a closing-date password applied. If the period is still open, do not pull reports — late entries posted by AP or payroll will silently change the figures the management team is reviewing.

Pull the WTB and confirm it agrees to the GL totals at the account level. Any difference means an unposted AJE or a draft journal — resolve before generating statements.

Every operating bank account and credit-card account should be reconciled through period-end. Flag any reconciling item over $1,000 or older than 30 days for management commentary.

List each stale or material reconciling item with date, amount, account, and proposed action (clear, void, write off, escalate). Attach the workpaper to the report package so the controller and partner can sign off on the disposition.

Run the P&L for the current month, YTD, and prior-year same-period. Use the same class / department dimensions the management team reviewed last month so trends are comparable.

Break revenue out by product line, service category, or customer segment — whatever the management team uses for decisions. Compare to forecast and prior year. Cut-off errors (revenue booked in the wrong period) usually surface here as oddly large or small lines.

Compare current-period gross margin % to the prior 3-month rolling average. Variances over 200bps usually trace back to inventory adjustments, mispostings between COGS and operating expense, or an unrecorded vendor rebate.

Walk every opex category that varies more than 10% or $5,000 against budget. Common gotchas: missed prepaid amortizations, payroll accruals booked twice, insurance renewals expensed in full instead of amortized.

A/R aging to GL receivables, A/P aging to GL payables, inventory module to inventory GL, fixed-asset register to net PP&E. Differences indicate journal entries that bypassed the sub-ledger and need to be corrected at the source.

Update each schedule for new additions, current-month amortization, and reclassifications. Confirm the ending balance per schedule equals the GL balance. Stale prepaids (insurance fully amortized but still on the books) are the typical finding here.

For each note payable and line of credit, agree the GL balance to the lender statement at period-end and confirm interest accrual. Misposted principal-vs-interest splits are the most common error.

Anything other than current-period net income flowing into equity needs documentation — owner draws, distributions, capital contributions, stock comp. AJEs posted directly to retained earnings without a memo are a red flag and should be reversed and re-coded.

Use Fathom, Spotlight, or a manual workpaper. Confirm the change in cash on the statement equals the change in cash on the balance sheet — if it doesn't, there is a non-cash item miscoded as cash (often a fixed-asset addition financed by a note).

Operating cash should generally track net income plus D&A adjusted for working capital. Significant divergence — strong P&L but weak operating cash — usually points to A/R buildup or inventory growth and is worth calling out in the commentary.

Cash and equivalents divided by trailing-3-month average burn (or net opex). Flag if runway falls under the threshold management has set — typically 3 months for SMBs, 6+ for venture-backed.

Show monthly and YTD actuals next to budget with $ and % variance columns. Apply a materiality threshold — typically the greater of 5% or $10,000 — so management commentary focuses on real movements, not rounding.

Each material variance gets a one- or two-sentence explanation citing the underlying driver — volume, price, timing, accrual reversal, one-time event. "Higher than budget" is not an explanation; "Q3 marketing campaign launched two weeks earlier than planned, accelerating $18K of agency fees" is.

Roll YTD actuals into the forecast and adjust the remaining periods for trends that have emerged. Document changes in assumptions — pricing, headcount plan, customer churn — so the management team can challenge them at the review meeting.

Refresh the standard set: gross margin %, operating margin %, DSO, DPO, current ratio, quick ratio, customer acquisition cost, and revenue per FTE. Pull from the same source each month — switching definitions mid-year breaks the trend line.

Plot each KPI on a 12-month rolling chart so seasonality is visible. Where industry data is available (RMA Annual Statement Studies, IBISWorld, BizMiner), include the peer comparison for at least margin and DSO.

For each metric outside the management-set tolerance band, write a brief note on the cause and the corrective action owner. DSO creeping past 45 days, for example, points to a collections-cadence issue and should route to the AR lead.

Open a follow-up task in Karbon / TaxDome / ClickUp assigned to the metric owner with a due date before the next monthly review. Carry the item forward in the management report until it returns to tolerance.

Pull the Gusto / ADP / Paychex tax liability report and confirm every deposit cleared by its semiweekly or monthly deadline. Late by 1-5 days is a 2% penalty; 6-15 is 5%; 16+ is 10% — bank-holiday months are where this trips.

Pull a 50-state revenue summary from Avalara or TaxJar and compare to each state's economic-nexus threshold (typically $100K or 200 transactions post-Wayfair). New states crossing the threshold need to register and begin filing.

Confirm the same person did not initiate and approve any wire, check run, or vendor-master change. Pull the Bill.com or Ramp audit log; for QBO direct payments, review the user activity report.

Capture findings, the responsible party, and the remediation date. This file is the standing evidence of management's monthly controls review and is the first thing an external auditor will ask for.

One page covering: financial highlights, top three variances and drivers, cash position and runway, KPI movements, and open compliance items. Lead with the conclusions; the underlying schedules are the appendix.

Reviewer checks that statements tie, commentary aligns to the numbers, and every flagged item from prior months has either resolved or carries a status update. Capture review notes and clear them before delivery.

Resolve each note from the reviewer and re-run any affected schedules. Re-submit for sign-off before delivering the package — do not send a returned package to ownership.

Upload to the client portal (SmartVault / ShareFile / Liscio / TaxDome) and send the notification with a one-paragraph executive summary. Schedule the monthly review call within 5 business days of delivery so the package gets discussed while it's still fresh.