Month-end slips when the bank and the books are reconciled in a rush, and the only report is whatever someone exports on the night. A feed can bring the bank lines in. Rules can match the lines you already understand. A scheduled report can arrive on the same day each month. A person still has to read what did not match, and decide what the numbers mean.
None of this replaces your accountant. It gives them, and you, the same pack every time, with the leftovers labelled.
Bring the bank in on purpose
A bank feed, or a file you download on a set day, should land in the accounting software you already keep. Pick one. Mixing a live feed and a hand-typed copy of the same account will create duplicates that look like income.
Write which accounts are in scope. The current account yes. A savings account only if you move money through it for the business. A personal account no. If a line on the business account is personal, the rule is to flag it, not to hide it.
Note the delay. Some banks show a card payment a day or two after you made it. Reconciliation that demands a same-day match will mark good lines as broken. Say how many days a line may wait before it is called unmatched.
Rules for lines you recognise
A reconciliation rule may match a bank line to a book entry when the amount agrees and the text on the line matches a supplier, a marketplace payout, or a transfer you named. Start with the ones that are boring:
- Rent, if it is the same amount from the same landlord.
- A named subscription, if the amount rarely changes.
- A marketplace payout, split the way you already split it into sales, fees, and refunds. The rule matches the net deposit. It does not pretend the deposit is a single sale.
- Transfers between your own business accounts, so they are not counted as income or as an expense.
If the amount is different from last time, or the text is new, the line waits. Do not write a rule that says "anything from this bank is postage." Wide rules are how a loan repayment gets filed as a sale.
The two reports worth scheduling
Send two reports, on a day you will actually open them. A Monday morning after the month has closed is easier to keep than the last evening of the month.
Profit and loss for the month. Income, the main cost groups you use, and the result. It should use the categories you already capture, so a new category does not appear without someone adding it. Show the month, and the year to date if your software can do that without a second project.
Cash snapshot. The balance on the in-scope accounts, money owed to you that is past due, and bills you owe that are due in the next two weeks. This is not a forecast of the whole year. It is enough to see whether the profit on the first report is sitting in the bank or still in unpaid invoices.
Both reports go to a named person. If you want your accountant to receive them, say so, and send the same file you read. A second version that was edited by hand will drift.
Set it up in this order
- List the accounts in scope and how the lines will arrive, feed or file.
- Reconcile one recent month by hand so you can see the lines that repeat.
- Add rules only for those repeats. Leave every other line for a person.
- Define the payout split for each marketplace you use, and test it on one real deposit.
- Build the two reports from the categories you already have. Do not add categories just to make a chart look full.
- Schedule them. The first month, reconcile before you trust the scheduled copy. After that, the report can arrive on its own, and you reconcile the leftovers it points at.
What you still do
Unmatched lines, new suppliers, refunds that do not tie to an order, and any amount you do not recognise stay on a list with the date and the bank text. That list is the month-end work. The report is the context for it.
If the profit looks healthy and the cash snapshot does not, read unpaid invoices before you read the costs. If a rule has matched something you would not have matched, turn that rule off until you can say why it was wrong.
If you want the feed, the rules, and the monthly pack set up in the accounting software you already use, send a request for bookkeeping automation.
Related: Automating receipts and expense capture.
