Process · Journal to close

Journal to close

Review expenses and journals, resolve outstanding differences and close the accounting period.

Step by step

Employee expense review Controller / CFO

Review the claimant, supporting receipts, expense policy and accounting period. The reviewer cannot be the claimant. Reimbursement uses the independently approved employee payees destination for that employee. Pending instructions reserve the unpaid claim balance, and only confirmed clearance settles it.
- Updates Expense claims, Expense claim items, Employees, Employee payees, Payments made
ApprovalA person approves before the work moves on.
Journal approval Controller / CFO

Review the submitted revision independently from preparation. Validate balanced debits and credits, permitted accounts, source uniqueness and an open period before posting.
- Updates Journal entries, Journal entry lines
ApprovalA person approves before the work moves on.
Period close Controller / CFO

Resolve pending work, reconcile subledgers and bank balances, then close the period atomically with posting locks. Reopening needs a reason and a retained decision.
- Updates Accounting periods, Journal entries, Bank reconciliations
ApprovalA person approves before the work moves on.
Financial reporting Viewer

Produce entity-scoped statements from posted ledger lines and aging from open document balances. Preserve reporting basis, dates and supporting drill-down; separate external filing acknowledgments.
- Updates Journal entries, Journal entry lines, Chart of accounts

What Small Business Accounting enforces at each step.

Keep expense and journal reviewers independent of the claimant or preparer.
Reimburse the employee through their approved employee payees destination; a pending instruction reserves the unpaid amount.
Resolve or explicitly address remaining work before the period lock; retain the reason and decision if reopening is required.

Controller / CFO: Controller / CFO works within the record, field and action scope below.
Viewer: Viewer works within the record, field and action scope below.

Start free, then use Proto to change fields, steps and approvals before your team goes live.