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playbook

Run month-end close, end to end

Clean the export, reconcile the accounts, roll up totals with shown work, compare to last month, model the runway, and write the leadership summary — a repeatable close where every number is verified and defensible.

متقدّم ~half a day

متى تلجأ إلى هذا

Month-end close is where every Finance skill gets tested at once, under a deadline. Done ad hoc, it's a frantic afternoon of half-trusted spreadsheets ending in a summary you're not sure you can defend. This system walks the whole arc — clean the file, reconcile the accounts, total with shown work, compare to last month, check the runway, and write the briefing — so close is a checklist you run, not a panic you survive. It ties the other five Finance playbooks into one defensible workflow where every number traces back to a verified step.

جهّز هذا أولًا

  • The raw exports for the month — billing-export-may.csv, payments-received.csv, bank-statement.csv — exactly as they came out, plus last month's clean versions to compare against.
  • Your standing artifacts: recurring-costs.csv, your category list, and your saved cashflow-model.md and leadership-summary-may.md templates from the earlier playbooks.
  • The deadline and the audience: when the close is due, and who reads the summary — so you know how tight and how defensible it needs to be.

الـ workflow

  1. Clean and profile every input first

    Nothing downstream can be trusted if the inputs aren't. Run the *Make a messy export trustworthy* loop on each file before anything else — one dirty export poisons the whole close.

    أنت تطلب 
    We're running month-end close. Start by profiling each file — billing-export-may.csv, payments-received.csv, bank-statement.csv: row count, columns, date range, total, and any blank rows, duplicate IDs, or mismatched dates. Propose fixes for me to approve, then save clean versions. Don't move to reconciliation until each file is clean and re-verified.

    ما تحصل عليه A clean, re-verified version of each file with a before/after total per file ("billing: 1,248 → 1,244 rows, total unchanged at 117,950"). You start the close knowing every input is trustworthy and why the row counts moved.

    This is *Make a messy export trustworthy* run three times. Resist the urge to skip it on the 'clean-looking' file — that's the one that bites you.

  2. Reconcile the accounts

    With clean inputs, run the *Reconcile two files, line by line* system: match payments to invoices and ledger to bank, surface every exception, and make the totals tie out before you total anything.

    أنت تطلب 
    Now reconcile: match payments-received against the invoices by invoice number, and the ledger against bank-statement by transaction reference. Give me the matched/unpaid/orphan buckets with totals for each, the outstanding total, and confirm each reconciliation ties out. Flag any orphan payment to investigate before we close.

    ما تحصل عليه Reconciliations that balance — "Invoiced 64,600 = Paid 58,200 + Unpaid 6,400; bank ties to ledger with 1 orphan of 600 to investigate" — and a short exception list. The close can't proceed on an unexplained gap.

  3. Total with shown work and compare to last month

    Roll up the verified data into category totals with the math shown, then run the month-over-month delta and the spend audit together — so the totals are checkable and the anomalies surface in one pass.

    أنت تطلب 
    From the clean, reconciled data, total spend by category and show the formula for each. Then compare to last month's totals — biggest movers in dollars and percent — and scan for anomalies: charges far above normal, duplicates, and first-time vendors. Tell me the single line most worth explaining to leadership.

    ما تحصل عليه A totals table with shown work ("Software 14,650 = sum of Category='Software', 41 rows"), a delta table ("Software +8,400 / +134%"), an anomaly flag ("Cloud Co 14,200 one-time overage"), and the one callout — *Audit the month's spend* folded into the close.

    Spot-check one category total by hand against the raw file. If it ties, you can trust the method across all of them — that single check is what makes the whole close defensible.

  4. Update the runway model

    Close isn't just backward-looking. Feed the verified actuals into the *Build a cash-flow model you understand* system so the close ends with a current, honest runway number, not a stale one.

    أنت تطلب 
    Update cashflow-model.md with this month's actual closing balance and any changed recurring costs. Re-project 6 months, explain any formula that changed, and tell me the current runway and the first month the balance goes negative. Run one downside scenario: revenue flat, no growth.

    ما تحصل عليه A refreshed model anchored to real actuals: "Closing cash 84,000; runway ~3.5 months (negative in month 4); flat-revenue downside: month 3." The forward number is now built on this month's verified close, not last month's guess.

  5. Write the summary and assemble the close pack

    End with the *Brief leadership in plain English* system — the narrative on top, the verified appendix below — and bundle every artifact so the whole close is one reviewable, repeatable pack.

    أنت تطلب 
    Write the leadership summary under 200 words from these verified numbers — what changed, why (use this context: [one-off tax bill, planned migration]), and two things to watch — with an appendix tracing each figure to its file and formula. Then list the full close pack: clean files, reconciliations, totals, model, and summary. Save it all so next month is a re-run, not a rebuild.

    ما تحصل عليه A under-200-word briefing whose every number traces to a verified step, plus a close-pack index (clean exports, reconciliations, totals-with-work, updated model, summary). The close is done — and every figure in it is defensible.

اجعله ملكك

  • **Quarter-end or year-end:** run the same arc over three months of data; lean harder on *Audit the month's spend* and add a quarter-over-quarter comparison to the totals step.
  • **Tighten the recurring parts:** once stable, wrap the profiling and reconciliation steps in custom commands and let a scheduled agent (see the *Features* tab) prep the clean files and exception lists overnight — so your morning is review and judgment, not data wrangling.
  • **Lighter monthly cadence:** if a full close is overkill mid-quarter, run just *Make a messy export trustworthy* → *Audit the month's spend* → *Brief leadership in plain English* for a fast pulse-check.

انتبه إلى

  • Don't skip the cleaning step to save time. A close built on an unprofiled export is fast to produce and impossible to defend when a number is questioned — the early steps are what make the late ones trustworthy.
  • Every reconciliation must tie out and every total must show its work before it reaches the summary. A close where the numbers are forced to balance is worse than one that honestly flags a gap — never let Claude paper over an unexplained difference.
  • Claude runs the workflow; a human owns the close. You sign off on every number, you decide what's a write-off versus a chase, and confidential financial data stays in your approved workspace with anything truly private swapped for [placeholder] — the close is yours to defend, not Claude's.

ستحصل في النهاية على A complete, repeatable month-end close in one workflow — clean inputs, reconciled accounts, totals with shown work, a month-over-month comparison, an updated runway, and a leadership summary — where every number is verified, traceable, and defensible.