Monthly Financial Review Checklist

Why a monthly rhythm matters

Most SME owners look at their numbers properly once a quarter — when the BAS forces them to — or once a year, when the accountant does. By then the story the numbers are telling is months old. A disciplined month-end review takes a couple of hours once the routine is established, and it means problems (a customer quietly stretching payment terms, a margin sliding, a cost creeping) surface while they're still cheap to fix.

Work through this in order: close the books, then check the health signals, then look forward. This is general practice guidance — your accountant remains the authority on your specific tax and reporting position.

Close the books

• Reconcile every bank account, credit card and loan account to the closing statement. Unreconciled lines are where errors and fraud hide.
• Reconcile payment platforms and clearing accounts (POS, payment gateways, till floats) — money in transit should be explainable, not mysterious.
• Chase and code all outstanding transactions. Missing receipts and uncoded bank lines compound; clear them monthly while memories are fresh.
• Review accounts receivable line by line. Flag anything beyond terms, and action the oldest debts first — send the reminder, make the call, or escalate. Ageing debt loses value fast.
• Review accounts payable. Confirm what's due in the next month so payments are planned, not reactive, and check for duplicate or unexpected bills.
• Check payroll cleared correctly: wages paid match payroll records, STP lodged for each pay run, and superannuation accrued and paid on the ATO's current schedule — with payday super, this is now a per-pay-cycle discipline, not a quarterly one.
• Post recurring journals (depreciation, prepayments, accruals) if you use them, so monthly figures are comparable.

Review the health signals

• Profit and loss vs budget and vs the same month last year. Don't just read the bottom line — scan each line for anything that moved and ask why. The "why" is the whole point of the review.
• Gross margin by month. Revenue can grow while margin decays; this line catches pricing drift and cost creep before annual accounts do.
• Cash position and near-term cash forecast. Known inflows minus known outflows over the coming weeks, including upcoming tax, super and loan payments. Profitable businesses still die of cash.
• Debtor days and creditor days. Trend, not absolute — if customers are paying slower each month, that's a strategy problem, not a bookkeeping one.
• Balance sheet sanity check: negative balances, stale loans-to-owner, suspense accounts with balances, GST and PAYG withholding control accounts that don't look right. Odd balance sheet lines are early smoke.

Check compliance posture

• Confirm upcoming lodgement obligations — BAS or IAS, PAYG instalments, payroll tax if you're over your state's threshold — against the ATO's and your state revenue office's current due dates, and make sure the cash will be there.
• Verify GST coding on large or unusual transactions this month, so BAS time is a confirmation, not an archaeology dig.
• File the month's substantiation: significant contracts, asset purchases, financing documents — attached in your accounting system, not in someone's inbox.

Look forward and close the loop

• Write down three numbers you'll watch next month and what would make you act on them.
• Log decisions made from this review — price change, collection call, cost to cut — with an owner and a date. A review that never produces an action is a ritual, not a control.
• Book next month's review now, same week each month, and hold it even when things feel fine. Especially then.

Who should do this

The bookkeeper closes the books; the owner (or whoever holds the money decisions) reads the signals. If both jobs currently land on you, that's a capability gap worth naming — our finance services page covers what good month-end support looks like, and the back-office capability gap explains why this work so often falls through the cracks in growing businesses.