The Law Firm Month-End Close Checklist: 9 Steps That Always Slip

Every law firm finance team has a month-end close process. Very few have one that finishes when it is supposed to. The pattern is remarkably consistent across firms: the close is not slow because the work is hard, it is slow because a handful of steps depend on other people, and those steps have no enforcement mechanism.

Here is the nine-step checklist we see at well-run firms, with the failure mode for each step and what keeps it on schedule.

1. Time entry cutoff

The close cannot start until timekeepers release their time. The failure mode: partners enter time last, late, and under deadline pressure at pre-bill time instead. What works: a hard cutoff date communicated relentlessly, daily missing-time reports to practice group leaders, and, bluntly, managing partner air cover.

2. WIP review and write-offs

Unbilled work-in-progress needs review before it becomes revenue you count on. The failure mode: WIP reports arrive as spreadsheets nobody opens. What works: exception-based review, where only matters where WIP aged past a threshold get a decision this month.

3. Accounts payable cutoff

You cannot accrue what you cannot see. When invoices enter the firm through five different doors, the AP accrual is a guess, and late-arriving invoices reopen the close. This step is the most automatable of the nine: single-queue invoice capture turns the cutoff into a report you run, not a hunt you conduct.

4. Expense reimbursements

Attorney expense reports trail the month by weeks, then land all at once. What works: a submission deadline tied to the reimbursement run date (expenses in by the cutoff are paid this cycle, later ones wait) plus mobile receipt capture so submission takes minutes, not an evening.

5. Trust account reconciliation

The step with regulatory teeth. Three-way reconciliation (bank balance, book balance, individual client ledgers) is non-negotiable and jurisdictionally required. The failure mode is treating it as quarterly hygiene. It is monthly, and it is first, because unwinding an error compounds by the month.

6. Bank and credit card reconciliations

Straightforward when transaction coding happened during the month; painful when a month of uncoded card charges lands on one person during close week. What works: coding at transaction time, by the cardholder, with a rule that uncoded charges escalate after five business days.

7. Revenue, realization, and AR roll-forward

Billings, collections, realization against standard rates, and aged AR: the numbers partners actually read. The failure mode: these reports are hand-built in Excel every single month, which is why they arrive on day 12 instead of day 3.

8. Partner and management reporting

The deck gets rebuilt from scratch monthly: export, pivot, paste, format, repeat. Any question ("can we see this by practice group?") restarts the cycle. What works: live dashboards that consolidate automatically, so the monthly deliverable is analysis and commentary, not assembly.

9. Variance review and sign-off

The step that gets skipped when steps 1–8 run late, which is exactly how errors survive into next month. Protect it by making it the same 60-minute meeting on the same day every month, with a one-page variance summary as the only input.

The pattern behind the slippage

Look at which steps slip: the ones that depend on many people (time, expenses, approvals) and the ones that are manual assembly (AP cutoff, reporting). The fix for the first group is deadlines with visibility. The fix for the second is automation.

Kusava was built for exactly those two groups: Cascade puts every invoice and expense into one governed workflow, and Currents replaces the hand-built reporting pack with live dashboards. If your close regularly runs past day 10, book a 30-minute walkthrough and we will show you which steps you can take off the critical path.