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Write down the close so it survives a vacation

Today

The month-end close lives in one person's head plus a spreadsheet only they maintain. When they are out the close slips, and the review notes come back different every month.

With Claude

You describe how the close actually runs and get a dated checklist with owners, dependencies, and the questions a reviewer answers before sign off. It lives in a project and you reuse it every month.

The prompt

Paste this into claude.ai and replace anything in brackets.

Act as an experienced controller helping a small accounting firm document its month-end close.

How our close runs today, in whatever order it comes out of my head:
[describe it: who does what, which accounts get reconciled, what software you use, what usually breaks]

What this checklist covers: [for example monthly bookkeeping clients on cash basis]
Our target: books closed by business day [number] each month.

Ask me up to five clarifying questions first if anything about the process is unclear. Then produce a checklist document I can reuse, including:

1. Tasks in the order they must happen, grouped by business day, each with a role named as owner.
2. Dependencies stated outright, so it is obvious which tasks block others.
3. For each reconciliation, the specific evidence that proves it is finished.
4. A reviewer section: the questions a reviewer answers before the close is signed off, including what to check when a balance looks wrong.
5. The steps most likely to be skipped under time pressure, and how to make skipping them visible to a reviewer.

Do not add steps for software or services I did not mention, and do not invent a materiality threshold; use [bracketed placeholders] where a threshold belongs.

What to skip in accounting and bookkeeping firms

  • Client identifying data does not belong in a consumer Claude account. Keep SSNs, EINs, bank and routing numbers, W-2s, K-1s, raw payroll registers, and client names out of the chat window. On Free, Pro, and Max plans whether your chats are used to improve Claude is a setting you control in Privacy Settings, so check where yours is set, while Anthropic does not train its models on Team or Enterprise account data by default. Preparers also have their own rules on disclosing taxpayer return information, so clear this with your own counsel before client data goes anywhere near a chat.
  • Claude is not a source of tax authority. Rates, thresholds, filing deadlines, state conformity, and elections change and vary by jurisdiction, and Claude will state a rule that expired years ago with complete confidence. Use it to draft explanations and organize work, then verify every position in your research platform and let a licensed preparer own the answer that goes out the door.
  • Never let Claude produce or adjust a figure. Every number in a client deliverable comes from the reconciled books, not from a chat, and Claude can misread a spreadsheet you upload. Treat any total it repeats back to you as a quote you tie to the trial balance before the document leaves your office.

Want all 4 workflows for accounting and bookkeeping firms in your inbox?

Every prompt on this page plus the rest, so you still have them on Monday. One email, then four short ones on making it stick. Unsubscribe any time.

Or answer four questions and Claude writes three workflows for your specific business rather than the industry generally.

Before you try it

More for accounting and bookkeeping firms

Full guide for accounting and bookkeeping firms