Within a few days of month end, do the following:
1. Enter all vendor bills: Make sure all vendor bills for the month are entered in QuickBooks
2. Reconcile vendor statements: Reconcile each vendor’s statement to the corresponding accounts payable balance in QuickBooks
3. Enter all customer invoices: Make sure all customer invoices for the month are in QuickBooks
4. Enter all customer payments: Make sure all customer payments for the month are in QuickBooks
5. Reconcile bank accounts: Reconcile all bank accounts (including credit card, checking, and savings accounts) in QuickBooks
6. Reconcile inventory: Reconcile your inventory asset account between QuickBooks and your inventory system
7. Other reconciliations: Reconcile any other asset or liability accounts you are tracking outside of QuickBooks (e.g. Prepaid expenses, Accrued expenses, Deferred rent, etc.)
8. Run financials: Run your financial statements: Profit and Loss statement, Balance Sheet, and Statement of Cash Flows (if you are using accrual accounting); and any other reports for the period. Verify that the numbers appear reasonable (including trends, balances, and so forth). Make any changes as necessary.
9. Close the period: Close the period in QuickBooks. Do not skip this step. It means no more transactions (like vendor bills, customer invoices, etc.) can accidentally be posted to the closed period without at least some sort of warning. In QuickBooks you can choose to even require a password before anything is entered into a closed period.
10. Distribute financials: Distribute the financial statements.
A simple and efficient bookkeeping process.