Monthly Close Prep

Goal

Prepare the month-end pack: transactions grouped the way your chart of accounts already works, anomalies a human should look at, and a one-page owner summary in plain language. The books stay in the accounting tool. The agent prepares. A human posts.

Tools required

Direct is the vendor's public site. Affiliate appears only when ShipPlays is enrolled in that program.

• QuickBooks

  Direct

  Or Fortnox, Bokio, Xero — whichever ledger you already use. You need a CSV export and the chart of accounts. The agent never logs into it.

• A spreadsheet

  Direct

  The working file. Mapped vendors live on a tab. Totals are SUM formulas. The narrative is not allowed to invent a total.

• A folder for the pack

  Direct

  Drive or Notion, dated, so you can see what you sent the accountant last month.

Step-by-step setup

1. Export the month and freeze the mapping tab

   Export transactions and the chart of accounts. The mapping tab lists vendors you have already decided, such as a known software vendor to a software account. The model may propose a category for a new vendor. It may not overwrite a mapped one. Copy last month's mapping tab forward and add what the accountant accepted.

2. Split the export with formulas, not with a prompt

   Three piles: already mapped, new vendor, and amount that looks unlike that vendor's recent months. You can do this with lookups. Do not ask the model to join tables. It will get a join wrong and sound sure.

3. Propose categories only for new vendors

   The new-vendor prompt returns an account from your chart, a one-line reason, and a flag: sure or not sure. Not sure goes to the accountant untouched. Forcing every row into an account is how miscategorizations happen.

4. Ask questions about anomalies. Do not fix them.

   The anomaly prompt lists questions. Two charges from the same host on the same day is a question, not a deletion. The agent cannot delete, merge, or recode a row in the ledger.

5. Write the owner page from locked totals

   You paste totals from the spreadsheet, including the cell labels. The model explains those numbers. It may not introduce a figure that is not in the block you pasted. If the story needs a number you forgot, it says the number is missing.

6. The accountant accepts, then someone posts

   You read the pack. The accountant accepts categories. A person posts them in the ledger. Save the pack. This playbook does not file a return and does not email a tax authority.

Exact prompts

Propose an account for each new vendor. Do not recode mapped vendors. Do not compute totals.

Chart of accounts (name and type only):
{CHART}

New vendor rows (date, vendor, amount, memo):
{NEW_VENDOR_ROWS}

For each row return:
- Vendor
- Proposed account (must be a name from the chart) or "not sure"
- Confidence: sure or not sure
- Reason: one sentence tied to the memo or the vendor name
- Question for the accountant if confidence is not sure

Use not sure when the memo is blank, the vendor could fit two accounts, or the amount looks like a capital purchase rather than a monthly cost. Never invent a new account name.

Write questions for a human. Do not correct, delete, or recode anything.

Rows:
{ANOMALY_ROWS}

For each, one question a bookkeeper can answer by opening the bank or the receipt. Examples of good questions: is the second charge a refund, did the annual plan renew, is this a personal expense that should be an owner draw. Do not propose a journal entry. End with a count of questions. If a row looks normal, say leave it and why.

Write a one-page owner summary using ONLY the totals in the block below. Do not add numbers. Do not compute a new total. If you need a figure that is not here, write [missing].

Locked totals:
{LABELED_TOTALS}

Questions still open:
{ANOMALY_QUESTIONS}

Structure:
- What changed versus the prior month, but only if I included prior-month figures. Otherwise do not compare.
- The three lines an owner should look at, each citing a label from the block.
- Open questions, copied from my list, not resolved.
- What this pack is not: it is not a filed return and it is not a closed month until the accountant posts it.

Plain language. No "great month" unless the block supports a comparison I included.

Expected results

• A pack with mapped rows, a short new-vendor list, a question list, and a one-page summary.
• Totals that match the spreadsheet because they came from it.
• A mapping tab that gets duller every month.
• A founder who can explain the month without opening the ledger.

Guardrails

• The agent never posts to the ledger, never files a return, and never emails a tax authority.
• Totals are computed in the spreadsheet. The narrative cannot introduce a number outside the locked block.
• Leave payroll detail out unless you have decided your model vendor may process that data. A single mapped payroll journal is enough.
• Not sure is a successful output.
• This is preparation help. It is not accounting advice. Your accountant signs off.

Common mistakes

Related

• Outbound Account Research Sprint
• One-Source Content Engine