Month-end close for Australian businesses

A named person on our team owns your file and reviews everything that leaves it. Software does a real share of the grinding underneath it — coding, matching, flagging the obvious gaps — but nothing regulated happens without a person’s judgement, and nothing here is signed or filed by an algorithm.

No — month-end close is operational work inside your books, not something submitted to ATO. Where a filing does sit downstream of it, inside bookkeeping & accounting more broadly, that stays with your registered BAS or tax agent, never with us.

Whatever you already run. Most commonly QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, Sage, Zoho Books and a handful of others — we work inside your system rather than moving you onto one of our own.

A short, free read-only look at what you already have, and a written note on what we found. A scoping call decides the size of the engagement — nothing here commits you to anything.

There is no published price for month-end close — it depends on volume, how many entities are involved, and how far behind the books are. We quote after the read-only review, which is free.

Month-end close sits inside bookkeeping & accounting, alongside Monthly bookkeeping, Catch-up bookkeeping, Bank reconciliation. Most clients end up buying the category as a whole rather than one leaf at a time, but starting narrow is fine.

GST coding confirms every transaction carries the right tax code for the BAS. A close goes further: it posts accruals for costs incurred but not billed, spreads prepayments over the periods they cover, and defers income collected ahead of delivery — income-recognition questions under the Australian Accounting Standards, separate from whether the GST coding is correct.

BAS is due on fixed dates — 28 October, 28 February, 28 April, 28 July for most small businesses — and super guarantee follows the same rhythm. A close date set ahead of those deadlines means the period is already reconciled when your registered agent needs it.

Cash collected for work not yet delivered is booked to an unearned income liability under AASB 15, not revenue. We maintain a schedule per contract and release the balance on the delivery schedule, not the invoice-paid date.

Accrued each month from ordinary time earnings in the payroll software, then reconciled against the quarterly payment when it falls due 28 days after quarter end. Waiting until payment to record it understates the balance sheet most of the year.

They post to a prepayment asset account when paid, then release to expense in equal monthly amounts over the period the payment covers, instead of distorting one month's P&L.

We accrue the estimated liability at close from the purchase order, contract rate, or prior billing pattern, then true it up once the real invoice arrives.

Standing recurring entries, accruals for known but unbilled obligations, super guarantee accrual, unearned income releases, a reconciliation check for every account including the GST control account, and a flux review against the prior period — same order every close.

A P&L, balance sheet, and cash position on a fixed close date, with a flux note. It is internal management reporting, not a reviewed or audited financial statement — that opinion sits with a registered company auditor if needed.

Your accountant and registered tax agent build the annual financial statements and company tax return from a full year of closes. Consistent accruals, prepayments, and unearned income mean they start from numbers already correct, not several reconstructed months.

AI flags accounts that moved outside their normal range so nothing is missed because a person forgot. The named accountable person decides what posts and reconciles the GST control account for the registered BAS agent; determining what is owed stays that agent's call under the Tax Agent Services Act.