1. Review Uncategorized and Suspense Accounts
- ☐ Identify transactions posted to uncategorized expense or suspense accounts.
- ☐ Reclassify transactions using historical posting behavior.
- ☐ Review missing customer, vendor, or account details.
- ☐ Confirm no material balances remain in temporary accounts.
2. Clean Duplicate Vendors and Customers
- ☐ Search for similar vendor names.
- ☐ Merge duplicate vendor records where appropriate.
- ☐ Review duplicate customer records.
- ☐ Standardize naming conventions for future transactions.
3. Review Stale Balance Sheet Accounts
- ☐ Identify balances that have not moved for multiple months.
- ☐ Review old accruals, deposits, prepaids, and liabilities.
- ☐ Confirm whether balances are valid, need support, or should be cleared.
- ☐ Document cleanup decisions.
4. Investigate Duplicate Transactions
- ☐ Search for same amount and same vendor posted multiple times.
- ☐ Review transactions posted on the same or nearby dates.
- ☐ Check manual journal entries for repeated amounts.
- ☐ Reverse or correct duplicate postings where validated.
5. Validate Account Mapping
- ☐ Review transactions posted to unusual accounts.
- ☐ Compare current categorization against historical behavior.
- ☐ Identify inconsistent mappings across similar vendors.
- ☐ Update recurring rules or accounting policies as needed.
6. Prepare Cleanup Summary
- ☐ List issues found, corrected, and remaining open.
- ☐ Highlight high-dollar cleanup items.
- ☐ Document open questions for controller or founder review.
- ☐ Create a follow-up list for next close cycle.