Issue 01 · 15 September 2026

The month-end question most owners can't answer

Here's a question I ask on every first call: when you close a month, who signs off that the numbers are right?

Usually the answer is nobody. The transactions get recorded, the bank feed matches, the reports generate — and no human ever looks at the result and says "yes, this is true."

Recording is bookkeeping. Signing off is accounting. Most growing businesses are paying for the first and assuming they got the second.

You can feel the gap in specific ways. Margin that moves three points month to month for no reason anybody can name. A revenue figure the sales side disputes. A year-end where the accountant sends back a long list of adjustments and nobody remembers what they were for.

None of those are bookkeeping failures. The entries were made. What was missing is the person whose job it is to ask whether the result makes sense.

One thing to try this month

Pick last month. Open the balance sheet as of the final day, and check three figures against something outside the accounting system:

Fifteen minutes. If all three tie, your books are in better shape than most. If they do not, you have just found the most valuable fifteen minutes of your quarter.

Q3 closes in two weeks, which makes this a good week for it.

Where do you stand

Nine questions, three minutes, a score on the spot.

If you want the broader read rather than one check, the finance scorecard tells you how ready your numbers are for whatever you are planning next. No call required to see the result.

And if you try the three-figure check and something does not tie, reply and tell me which one. I answer every email myself.

— Loraine
Founder & Principal Accountant, BookSmart Services LLC

Get the next one

One email a month, mid-month. One idea, one thing to try on your own books, and a link you can ignore. If a month is quiet, I skip it rather than padding it.

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