Who this is for, and the moment
Working day one to working day eight. Same steps every month, same documents, same three people. And the same place it goes wrong: a figure moved after the ledger cut, and nobody re-ran the sheet that depended on it.
The question, as typed
“Kick off the May month-end.”
The answer
GroundedThe May-26 pack is already issued: the May Monthly Reporting Pack shows reporting period “May-26,” issued on 10 June 2026, with status “Final” 2021. I’ll therefore frame this as a re-run of the May close checks and verification of the issued pack, not as a first-time close. The calendar says the WD8 issued Monthly Reporting Pack is the governing pack, and any later copy marked FINAL supersedes prior versions 27.
May-26 close checklist — table of record
| WD | Task | Owner | Output | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WD1 | Sales ledger and despatch cut-off; order-line despatch data frozen | Dev Patel, AR & Credit Lead | Frozen revenue subledger | Not started in this re-run |
| WD2 | Purchase ledger close; agency labour and carrier & freight accruals posted | Marta Kowalska, AP Lead · Ben Tranter, Management Accountant | Accruals in GL | Not started in this re-run 16 |
| WD3 | FLASH: headline revenue and gross margin issued to CEO & CFO | Priya Nair, FP&A Analyst | Flash email — not a governing document | Not started in this re-run 5 |
| WD4 | Segment reviews: GMs confirm revenue by channel and flag one-offs | Helen Drummond + segment GMs, with FP&A | Confirmed segment view | Owner step — not automated 24 |
| WD5 | CLOSE COMPLETE: manual journals posted and approved; GL locked | James Whitfield, Financial Controller | Locked GL for the period | Not started in this re-run 17 |
| WD6 | Pack drafting: Consolidated P&L, Revenue & KPIs, Opex by Department, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow | Priya Nair, FP&A Analyst | Draft Monthly Reporting Pack | Not started in this re-run 25 |
| WD7 | Controller review; commentary drafted with segment GMs; checks tab cleared | James Whitfield + Priya Nair | Reviewed pack, commentary | Owner step — not automated 26 |
| WD8 | MONTHLY REPORTING PACK ISSUED — Status: Final | Issued by FP&A after Controller sign-off | Governing pack — PDF + xlsx | Already issued; to verify 27 |
| WD9 | Variance follow-ups with department budget owners | Ben Tranter, Management Accountant | Actions list | Owner step — not automated 28 |
| WD10 | Quarter-ends only: KPI & Commentary Pack and board deck preparation begins; covenant certificate prepared | FP&A · Financial Controller | Quarterly outputs | Not applicable unless quarter-end close output is requested 6 |
Close board
The board is a visual of the cited checklist above. Bank reconciliation is included as a skill-added close check; it is not shown as a separate row in the close calendar.
Runnable close steps mapped to skills
| Calendar step | Skill |
|---|---|
| WD2 / WD5 accrual completeness | accrual-completeness-sweep |
| WD3 flash | wd3-flash-report |
| WD5 manual-journal approvals | journal-approval-check |
| Bank reconciliation | bank-reconciliation-close |
| WD6 variance pack + commentary | month-end-variance-pack |
The other calendar steps stay with their named owners.
Shall I run these in order? I’ll stop for your sign-off at each gate.
The checklist reads the company’s own close calendar and shows the steps with their owners: WD1 sales-ledger cut-off, WD2 accruals, WD3 flash to CEO and CFO, WD5 close complete with journals approved, WD6 pack drafted, WD7 Controller review, WD8 pack issued FINAL. The runnable steps are offered in order, and each stops at a reviewer gate before the next starts. Chips: Month-End Close & Reporting Calendar · Monthly Reporting Pack May-26, Executive Summary.
The steps, each its own skill
- WD3 flash. Revenue £21,063k against £20,753k budget; operating profit £(12)k against £(51)k. Top variances called out. One page, every figure cited. The flash is an early indication; the issued pack governs, and the skill says so.
- Journal approvals. Manual journals of £50,000 or more need the Financial Controller. One qualifies in May: JNL-508295, £285,000, the Ridgway Freight accrual. It is presented for approve or query, and the decision is written to the approval log with who and when.
- Accrual sweep. What posted after the ledger cut: £333,173 in June against May, dominated by the £285k accrual; the department export that missed it; the invoice that evidences it.
- Bank rec. Statement £9,882,613.23 to cashbook £8,911,388.92 to pack £8,911k, three unpresented and two uncleared items verified, one stale cheque flagged for a person to decide.
- Variance pack. Every P&L line against budget, material variances investigated to their drivers, commentary drafted for sign-off.
The citation clicked
Any figure on any step opens its source. The gate screenshot shows the reviewer’s approve-or-query control next to the cited figure.
The trust chain
Every step’s figures go through the same guard a chat answer does. A step with an untraceable figure doesn’t close its gate.
What to notice
- The calendar is the company’s own, read from the document. There’s no template underneath.
- A person decides at every gate. The skill prepares the step; it doesn’t approve anything.
- Each decision is logged with its evidence, so the close records who signed as well as what happened. That log is what the auditor reads.
- I want to be straight about what’s built and what isn’t. The variance pack skill drafts the commentary today. Generating the approved pack as a file is still backlog, and the page says so.
Video
Watch one $2.1 million travel through an entire close (the biotech corpus).
Related
Use cases: Check the board pack · Hard queries · The audit trail.
Series: Continuous close for FP&A. Post: The $2.1 million that was only in one of your reports.
