01 ยท Close & controls
Bookkeeping & Finance Operations
Accurate, reconciled books, closed on a predictable schedule with clear controls. Forecasts, reporting, KPIs and automation all read from the ledger, so this is where reliability starts.
The problem
Unreliable books make every later number arguable.
- The close has no fixed date. Month-end finishes when it finishes, and management reporting waits.
- Balance-sheet accounts are not reconciled. Cash, receivables, payables and accruals drift from reality.
- The chart of accounts grew by accident. Similar costs land in different accounts, so trends are unreadable.
- Payables and receivables run informally. Approvals, due dates and collections depend on memory and inboxes.
- The books were kept for tax, not management. They are adequate for a year-end filing but not for running the business monthly.
What we do
Keep the books, close the month, and fix the process.
- Monthly bookkeeping: transaction coding, bank and card feeds, accruals and prepayments.
- Month-end close: a written close calendar with owners, cut-offs and review steps.
- Bank and balance-sheet reconciliations: bank, cards, receivables, payables, deferred revenue, payroll liabilities and accruals.
- Accounts payable: bill capture, approval routing and payment runs.
- Accounts receivable: invoicing, collections tracking and aged-debt review.
- Chart-of-accounts design: a structure that supports management reporting, not only compliance.
- Reporting hygiene and process improvement: fewer manual journals, clearer documentation and a cleaner audit trail.
Scope
What this does not include.
Longhand is not a CPA firm. We do not provide tax preparation, tax advice, audit, assurance or legal services. Where those are needed, we work alongside your accountants and advisers and prepare the books and schedules they rely on.
What you get
Deliverables.
Monthly close package
Reconciled balance sheet, P&L and cash flow, account reconciliations, flux review and the completed close checklist.
Close calendar
Dates, owners and dependencies for each close step, so the month ends on schedule.
Revised chart of accounts
Mapped from the old structure, so history stays comparable.
AP and AR routines
Documented approval, payment and collections steps, with aged payables and receivables each month.
How it connects
Part of one system.
- FP&A, Financial Modeling & Valuation
Forecasts, budgets and valuation work start from closed, reconciled actuals. A reliable close is what makes variance analysis meaningful.
- Finance & Data Infrastructure
The ledger is the accounting layer of the data architecture. Its structure determines what reporting can show.
- Finance Automation & AI
Reconciliations, bill capture and recurring journals are candidates for automation once the process is stable.
Discuss a project.
Tell us what you are trying to fix or build: a close that takes too long, a forecast nobody trusts, a valuation question, reporting that is assembled by hand. We will reply with how we would approach it.