The month-end close, in the order that works

Why the order matters more than the speed

Every step in a close consumes the output of an earlier one. Fees are calculated from revenue, so revenue has to be final before fees are applied. Statements are built from costs, so costs have to be complete before statements are produced. Payouts follow statements. Each of those is obvious on its own, and each is routinely broken by someone trying to get ahead on a quiet afternoon.

The cost of breaking the order is not the rework. It is the reissued statement — two versions of the same month in an owner’s inbox, and a permanent small doubt about whether the numbers can be trusted.

So the goal is not a fast close. It is a close that runs in the same order, on the same dates, and never produces a second version of anything.

Decide the cut-off before anything else

A cut-off is two decisions, and both belong in writing before your first close, not during your fifth.

• Revenue cut-off: which stays belong to this month. Recognise on check-out, on check-in, or apportion by night. Any of the three is defensible; only consistency is non-negotiable.
• Cost cut-off: the date after which a cost falls into next month regardless of when it was incurred. Typically a few working days after month end, to allow suppliers to send what they owe you.

Then publish both. Cleaners, maintenance contractors and linen suppliers need to know the date by which their paperwork must be with you, and a supplier who is told once tends to comply. A supplier who is chased every month never will.

The eight steps, in order

1. 1Freeze the calendar. Confirm every stay in the period is finalised — no pending cancellations, no unconfirmed modifications, no stays still showing as inquiries. This is the step people skip, and it is the one that causes reissues.
2. 2Reconcile revenue to the channel. For each channel, agree the total the channel says it remitted against the total your records show for the same period. Investigate the difference now; it will not get easier in a week.
3. 3Capture every cost. Chase outstanding supplier paperwork against the published cut-off, attach evidence to each cost, and allocate each one to a property and, where it applies, to the stay that caused it.
4. 4Categorise and check the odd ones. Scan the cost list for anything unusually large, unusually named, or uncategorised. Five minutes here saves a query later.
5. 5Apply fees. Only now, with revenue final, apply the fee from each agreement at the agreed rate and base.
6. 6Produce statements. Generate, then read one in full as an owner would — not to check the arithmetic, but to check it can be followed.
7. 7Approve and send. On the published date. Same date every month.
8. 8Pay out, and reconcile the payout run to the statements. The sum of the net-to-owner lines must equal what left the account. If it does not, something in step 3 or 5 is wrong.

The two reconciliations that catch almost everything

Channel to ledger

Take each channel’s own payout report for the period and agree it to the revenue you have recorded. Differences almost always come from one of four places: a booking modified after it was recorded, a cancellation with a partial payout, a cleaning fee handled differently by that channel, or a currency conversion. Each has a fix; none of them fixes itself.

Where a channel manager is syncing bookings for you, this reconciliation is where you find out whether the sync is complete. HostHQ syncs bookings from Uplisting today, and the same check applies: the sync tells you what it received, and the channel report tells you what it sent. What HostHQ connects to.

Bank to statements

The money that left the account for owner payouts should equal the sum of the net figures on the statements you sent. The money that left for suppliers should equal the sum of the cost lines you recharged, plus anything you absorbed. Two subtractions, done monthly, that make a year-end reconstruction unnecessary.

A close calendar you can hand over

Put the sequence on dates and it becomes delegable. An illustrative calendar for a close that publishes statements on the 7th:

The value of writing it down is that the steps requiring judgement are visibly separated from the steps that do not. Only three rows above need you.

When something is wrong after the close

• A missing cost: next month, as an adjustment line naming the month it relates to.
• A cost charged to the wrong property: next month, two lines — a credit on one and a charge on the other — so both owners can see the correction.
• A fee applied to the wrong base: correct next month and tell the owner before they find it. A self-reported error costs you nothing; a discovered one costs trust.
• A cancellation after payout: agree the recovery route with the owner in writing before deducting it, and show it as its own line rather than netting it into a total.

The one thing never to do is reissue a statement for a month already sent. Corrections belong in the open month, where they are visible, dated and explained.

The close checklist