BOOKS CLOSE BY THE 10TH. NON-NEGOTIABLE.
The month end close deadline is the foundation of every financial metric we track. If the books don't close by the 10th, the WIP schedule is wrong. If the WIP is wrong, the P&L is wrong. If the P&L is wrong, the CEO Report is wrong, and every decision made from it's built on bad data. The 10th of the month close is the load bearing requirement of the whole financial control system.
Every number a subcontractor makes decisions with depends on a closed period. The WIP schedule needs the month's billings, costs, and percent complete updates before it can reconcile. The P&L needs the WIP entries before its revenue means anything. The CEO Report needs the P&L. So a close that finishes on the 22nd doesn't delay one report, it delays the entire chain, and by the time the owner reads the numbers the month they describe is six weeks old. Late books don't produce late information. They produce wrong information, delivered confidently.
WHAT IT MEANS.
The month end close is the process of entering, reconciling, and finalizing the prior month's books, and the deadline for it's the 10th of the following month.
The close is a weekly rhythm with a monthly finish line rather than a scramble in the first two weeks of the month. Transactions get coded as they come in, bank feeds get reconciled continuously, and cost approvals happen weekly instead of in a monthly batch. Built that way, the 10th stops being a stretch by the second or third cycle.
LATE BOOKS MAKE EVERY NUMBER WRONG.
The WIP schedule is stale or wrong
The WIP schedule needs the current period's billings, costs, and percent complete updates in order to reconcile. If the books aren't closed, some of those inputs are missing or estimated. A WIP schedule built on incomplete month end data produces overbilling and underbilling numbers that are wrong, which means the revenue recognized on the P&L is wrong too.
Double entries and unapproved costs distort the balance sheet
When books close late, transactions from the new period start mixing with the old one. Invoices entered before the prior period is reconciled create double entries, and AP that was accrued gets paid and entered a second time. The balance sheet accumulates distortions that take hours to unwind, assuming anybody finds them at all.
CEO Report data is unreliable
The monthly CEO Report pulls from closed, reconciled books. If the books aren't closed by the meeting, the owner is reviewing revenue, gross margin, and net profit built on incomplete data. Decisions made from those numbers, meaning hiring, equipment, and bidding, get made with bad information.
Bank reconciliation delays leave cash problems unseen
A bank reconciliation that finishes three weeks into the next month means the cash position is always built on old data. Outstanding items that should be caught in the rec, like duplicate payments, bank errors, and timing differences, persist for weeks instead of days. Cash management becomes reactive because the information is always behind.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN DOLLARS.
Books closed by the 10th means the CEO Report reaches you mid month, so revenue, margins, overhead, cash, and trends get reviewed while the month being reviewed is recent enough to act on. Books closed by the 25th means managing November with September's data. The deadline is about decision speed.
A verified marine client at $25M did its close in shared Excel, taking 8 to 10 hours to produce reports with one person as the single point of failure. A proper close system made the same reports instant, freed up the accounting function, and produced financials clean enough to qualify for $10M in aggregate bonding.
A verified erosion control client at $5.2M was netting $24K with no monthly close worth speaking of: no per site costing, no WIP, and no trend data. The close discipline plus per site job costing took net profit to $1.1M the following year. That wasn't new work, it was the same work, finally visible month over month.
The concrete close trues up ready mix invoices against pour tickets and yards billed. Supplier billing errors, overage charges, and short loads go unseen in the gap between what was poured and what was invoiced, typically 1% to 3% of material cost. On $1.5M of annual ready mix, the close discipline recovers $15K to $45K a year of pure billing error.
A civil close reconciles equipment hours to jobs and field quantities to billed quantities. Unallocated equipment time and unbilled overruns surface at close, or they never surface at all. A civil sub that closes by the 10th catches a 2,000 yard quantity overrun in 40 days, and one that closes by the 25th catches it after the claim window has shut.
The electrical close includes a mandatory sweep of every directed change, every T&M ticket, and every revision caused scope delta from the month, each one confirmed billed or escalated. The trades that accumulate small changes need the monthly backstop most. The sweep is what makes the 48 hour change order protocol fail safe.
TEN DAYS, IN FOUR STEPS.
All transactions from the prior month get entered and coded by the 3rd. Payroll, AP, AR, and job cost entries are in the system before the 4th. Any transaction not coded by the 3rd gets coded to the new period rather than backdated into the old one.
The bank rec is complete by the 6th. Every account gets reconciled to its statement, meaning operating, payroll, and savings. Outstanding items get identified and resolved, and nothing moves forward without clean bank recs behind it.
The WIP schedule gets updated with the current period's billings, costs, and percent complete. Overbilling and underbilling are calculated and recorded as balance sheet entries, and revenue gets adjusted to reflect completion rather than billing timing. The financial statements then reflect economic reality instead of invoice timing.
The period gets closed out, the financial statements are finalized, and the CEO Report data is pulled. The monthly accountability meeting can then happen in week two off a clean close. The deadline is built into the engagement as a standard deliverable rather than something the client has to manage.
We coordinate with the client's bookkeeper so transaction entry is current by the 3rd, we complete the bank rec by the 6th, and we complete the WIP reconciliation by the 9th. The client's job is to have transactions coded and approved. Ours is to close the books on time regardless of how disorganized the prior period was.
THE OUTPUTS, NAMED.
FLAT MONTHLY FEE. NO SURPRISES.
Three tiers, priced by your trailing twelve month revenue. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No hourly billing. No payroll. The one-time onboarding fee is right here in the table.
| Last 12 months revenue | Monthly fee | One-time onboarding |
|---|---|---|
| Under $1M | $1,900 to $3,300 | $1,000 |
| $1M to $3.5M | $2,600 to $5,300 | $1,500 |
| $3.5M to $6.5M | $3,800 to $8,300 | $3,000 |
| $6.5M to $9.5M | $5,100 to $11,800 | $4,500 |
| $9.5M to $12.5M | $6,100 to $14,900 | $6,000 |
| $12.5M to $15.5M | $7,400 to $17,650 | $7,500 |
| $15.5M to $18.5M | $9,400 to $22,400 | $9,000 |
| $18.5M+ | Quoted individually | Quoted individually |
The onboarding fee covers migrating your books back to the start of your last taxable year and getting you fully operational in 60 days. It's billed once, with your first invoice. It's the same for all three tiers. Your first month is prorated, and your monthly engagement starts on the first of the first full month.
Range reflects the three tiers below. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No payroll. No hidden line items. The onboarding fee is right here in the table.
You stop guessing.
You get the CFO work. Job costing built against the way you estimate, a 13 week cash forecast, monthly WIP, and a meeting every month that ends in decisions and never in a report.
Your bookkeeper still does the books.
Every job shows its margin while it is still open.
Everything in Core, plus the bookkeeping and bank reconciliations done for you, and the job costing and WIP software set up, loaded with your cost codes, and managed every month. Use your own online software, or move to ours and we cover it.
A bookkeeper we choose does the books and reconciliations. No payroll.
You approve, and the money side gets handled.
Everything in Strategic, plus a controller we choose who handles your bills and receivables for you the way an in-house controller would. They call vendors, pay the bills and keep the accounting current. We plan the cash flow first, and you approve every payment because it is your money.
A controller we choose does the payables and receivables. No payroll, no pay applications, no collections.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
