Monthly Bookkeeping Checklist

Before the month starts

• Confirm your business bank account is separate from personal.
• Confirm your chart of accounts maps to your tax return line items.
• Confirm you have receipts storage set up (folder per month).

Week 1: gather

• Download previous month bank statements (all business accounts).
• Download previous month credit card statements.
• Collect any physical receipts and photograph them.
• Save invoices sent and received in the appropriate folders.

Week 1: parse and categorize

• Upload statements to your bookkeeping tool.
• Let the rule engine categorize everything it can.
• Review only the Uncategorized bucket.
• Add a rule for any recurring merchant you have not seen before.
• Tag transfers between your own accounts explicitly.

Week 1: reconcile

• Confirm the tool ending balance matches the bank statement ending balance to the penny.
• Investigate any variance immediately, do not defer.
• Mark the account reconciled for the month.

Week 2: exceptions and receipts

• Attach receipts to every transaction over the reporting threshold.
• Flag any transaction that needs a note (business purpose, client name).
• Resolve any pending disputes on the credit card.

Week 2: reporting

• Export a Profit and Loss for the month.
• Export a Balance Sheet if you use accrual accounting.
• Compare the P&L to the same month last year.
• Note any category up or down more than 20 percent.

Week 2: tax reserve

• Multiply net income for the month by your effective tax rate.
• Transfer that amount to a dedicated tax reserve account.
• Do not spend from the tax reserve.

Every quarter

• File estimated tax payment.
• Review chart of accounts, merge or split leaves as needed.
• Confirm all contractors have current W-9 or W-8 on file.

Every year

• Close the year in your bookkeeping tool.
• Export the full-year P&L and balance sheet as PDFs.
• Hand these to your accountant or tax software.
• Archive the tax year folder to long-term storage.

This checklist takes 15 minutes if your tool does the parsing and categorization work for you. It takes an hour if you type transactions in by hand. That is the case for automation in one sentence.