Monthly Bookkeeping Checklist: 27 Tasks Your Bookkeeper Should Handle

Most small business owners hire a bookkeeper, send over access to QuickBooks, and then have no real idea what the bookkeeper is actually doing every month. The reports show up, the invoice gets paid, and you trust that the work is being done. Often, the work is being done correctly. But sometimes, it isn’t — and the problem only shows up at tax time, when your CPA flags a year of miscategorized transactions.

This is the checklist a good bookkeeper runs every month. Here are 27 tasks, in roughly the order they happen, with what each one means in practice. Use it to gauge whether your current bookkeeper is doing the work, to vet a new one before hiring, or — if you’re doing DIY bookkeeping yourself — to make sure nothing’s slipping.

We’re a tax and bookkeeping firm based in Allen, TX. This checklist reflects the process we use across monthly bookkeeping engagements, adjusted based on each client’s business. Nothing in here is theoretical — it’s what monthly small business bookkeeping looks like when it’s being done right.

Week 1 of the new month: pulling everything in

The monthly cycle starts at the beginning of the following month. By the 5th, last month should be ready to close. Here’s what happens in that first week:

•  1. Import all bank transactions. Every checking account, savings account, and money market account connected to the business. Bank feeds usually pull automatically, but anything that didn’t import gets manually added from statements.
•  2. Import all credit card transactions. Both business credit cards and any personal cards used for business expenses (with the personal portion handled separately).
•  3. Import merchant account transactions. Stripe, Square, PayPal, Shopify Payments, Authorize.net — every payment processor connected to the business. Deposits to your bank are net of fees, and the gross sales plus fees need to be recorded separately.
•  4. Import loan and line-of-credit activity. SBA loans, equipment financing, lines of credit, vehicle loans. Both the interest expense and principal payments need separate recording.
•  5. Pull payroll reports from the provider. Gusto, ADP, Rippling, QuickBooks Payroll, Paychex — whatever you use. The gross wages, employer taxes, benefits, and net pay all need to be journalized into the books.
•  6. Capture missing receipts. Anything paid in cash, anything where the bank feed shows only an amount with no clear vendor, and any reimbursable expenses submitted by employees. The bookkeeper either has these documented or flags them for the owner to provide.

Week 2: categorizing and reconciling

Once the data is in, the actual work starts. This is where bookkeeping turns into bookkeeping rather than just data import.

•  7. Categorize every transaction. Each transaction gets assigned to the correct account in the chart of accounts. “Categorize” doesn’t mean trust QuickBooks’ auto-suggestions — those are starting points that get manually verified, especially for new vendors or unusual amounts.
•  8. Match deposits to invoices. When a customer pays an invoice, the deposit in the bank should be matched to the open invoice in QuickBooks. Unmatched deposits become orphaned revenue. Unmatched invoices stay open forever on AR.
•  9. Match bill payments to bills. Same idea on the AP side. If a bill was entered, the payment needs to be applied against it. Otherwise, you have a paid bill still showing as owed and a payment with no purpose.
•  10. Record owner draws and contributions correctly. Money moving between the owner and the business is one of the most commonly mis-categorized items. Distributions are equity, not expenses. Contributions are equity, not income. The bookkeeper makes sure these are coded correctly.
•  11. Identify and recategorize personal expenses. Inevitably, personal Amazon orders, family meals, or personal travel end up on the business card. The bookkeeper flags these and recategorizes them as owner draws rather than business expenses.
•  12. Reconcile every bank account. This is the real reconciliation step — tying the ending balance in QuickBooks to the actual bank statement. Any differences get investigated and resolved. “Differences we couldn’t find” is not an acceptable outcome.
•  13. Reconcile every credit card account. Same process as bank accounts. QuickBooks ending balance ties to the actual credit card statement. Pending charges and disputes get handled appropriately.
•  14. Reconcile merchant accounts. Stripe and Square balances rarely get reconciled by owners doing DIY books, and they almost always have small variances that accumulate. A good bookkeeper ties these out every month.
•  15. Reconcile loan accounts. The loan principal balance in QuickBooks should match the bank’s amortization schedule each month. If it doesn’t, the principal/interest split on payments is wrong.

Want to know whether your current bookkeeper is doing this work? Book a free 30-minute review — we’ll take a quick look at your QuickBooks file and tell you honestly what’s being done well and what’s missing.

Book a review: Free Consultation

Or call us: 469-888-8492

Mid-month: review and adjustments

With the books reconciled, the next layer is making sure everything makes sense — not just that it balances.

•  16. Review AR aging. Who owes the business money, and how long has it been outstanding? Anything past 60 days gets flagged for the owner. Anything past 120 days probably needs a write-off conversation.
•  17. Review AP aging. Who does the business owe, and what’s coming due? Bills past due affect vendor relationships and may have late fees. Bills sitting unpaid that shouldn’t be need investigation.
•  18. Make accrual adjustments (if applicable). Businesses on accrual books need entries for revenue earned but not invoiced, expenses incurred but not paid, prepaid expenses being recognized, and deferred revenue being recognized. Cash-basis businesses skip this step.
•  19. Record depreciation. Fixed assets — vehicles, equipment, computers, furniture — depreciate over time. Monthly depreciation entries keep the balance sheet accurate. Many DIY books skip this and end up with overstated assets and understated expenses.
•  20. Flag unusual transactions. A vendor whose charges doubled, a deposit that doesn’t match any invoice, a refund that came in without a clear source — anything that looks off gets surfaced to the owner with a question, not silently categorized.

Closing the month: locking it down

Once the books are reconciled and reviewed, the month gets formally closed. This step is the one DIY bookkeepers most often skip — and it’s the one that prevents mistakes from compounding.

•  21. Run the trial balance and verify it ties out. The fundamental check: debits equal credits, balance sheet accounts make sense, retained earnings flow correctly. If something’s wrong here, the reports will be wrong too.
•  22. Generate the P&L. Revenue, cost of sales, gross margin, operating expenses, net income. Compared against the prior month and the prior year for context.
•  23. Generate the balance sheet. Assets, liabilities, and equity. Cash, AR, AP, fixed assets, loans, and equity all reconcile to the underlying accounts.
•  24. Generate the cash flow statement (or position). How much cash came in and went out during the month, separated by operating, investing, and financing activities. Or, for simpler businesses, just a current cash position summary.
•  25. Calculate any KPIs specific to the business. Gross margin by job for contractors, revenue per chair for dental practices, MRR for SaaS, sales per square foot for retail. A real bookkeeper builds these into the monthly package, not just the standard three statements.
•  26. Lock the period in QuickBooks. Once the month is closed, the date gets locked so prior-period transactions can’t be added or changed without an explicit reason. This is the step DIY books almost always skip — and it’s why books that “were correct in March” suddenly look different in November.
•  27. Deliver the report package to the owner. By a fixed date each month — typically the 15th, sometimes earlier. The package includes the reports, any flagged items, and a short note on anything the owner should look at.

What’s NOT on the monthly checklist (and what is)

A few things that get mistakenly grouped with bookkeeping but actually aren’t — and a few things that often get skipped but should be there:

And on the flip side, here’s what often gets skipped but should be on the list:

• Recording depreciation monthly (not just at year-end)
• Reconciling merchant accounts (Stripe, Square, PayPal)
• Catching personal-on-business-card charges and recoding to owner draws
• Locking the period after the month is closed
• Calculating industry-specific KPIs, not just the generic three statements

The Texas-specific monthly items

For small businesses in Allen and across Texas, a few additional items belong on the monthly checklist that wouldn’t apply elsewhere:

•  Track Texas sales tax as transactions come in. Each taxable sale gets sales tax accrued at the right rate (state plus local). At filing time — monthly, quarterly, or annually depending on volume — the number is already known.
•  Watch for franchise tax thresholds. Texas franchise tax obligations are generally based on total revenue and applicable thresholds, so businesses approaching those thresholds should monitor revenue before the filing deadline.
•  Track depreciable assets for business personal property rendering. This is the annual report of business-owned equipment, furniture, inventory, and other taxable personal property required by Texas counties. Keeping a clean fixed asset list throughout the year makes that filing painless.
•  Monitor multi-state nexus if you sell beyond Texas. E-commerce and B2B SaaS businesses often trigger economic nexus in other states without realizing it. A good bookkeeper tracks sales by state and flags when you’re approaching a threshold.

How to use this checklist

Three practical ways:

If you’re evaluating your current bookkeeper

Pick a recent month and walk through the list. For each item, ask: was this done? Sometimes the honest answer is “I don’t actually know.” That’s a starting point for a conversation with your bookkeeper — not necessarily a reason to switch, but a reason to make sure the work is happening.

If you’re hiring a new bookkeeper

Ask the candidate to walk through their monthly process. Compare it to this list. A good bookkeeper should be able to describe most of the 27 items without prompting. If their description is vague (“I categorize transactions and send you reports”), that’s a flag.

If you’re doing DIY bookkeeping

Print the list and run through it every month. The items most often skipped by DIY books — locking the period, recording monthly depreciation, reconciling merchant accounts, recategorizing personal-on-business-card transactions — are the same items that cause messy year-end cleanups. Doing them monthly is the difference between books that hold up and books that don’t.

How long does this take each month?

For a typical Allen-area small business, monthly bookkeeping using this checklist takes roughly:

• Solo business, under 100 transactions/month: 2–4 hours
• Small business, 100–250 transactions/month: 4–8 hours
• Established business, 250–500 transactions/month: 8–15 hours
• Complex business, 500+ transactions, multi-entity, or accrual: 15–30 hours

If you’re doing DIY and the work is taking substantially longer than these ranges, something in your setup probably needs work — either the chart of accounts isn’t right, the bank feeds aren’t connecting cleanly, or transactions are being categorized inconsistently. None of those are hopeless; they’re fixable, usually by a one-time consultation rather than a full bookkeeping engagement.

Want us to take a look at your books?

If you’re not sure whether your bookkeeper is doing this work — or whether your DIY setup is catching everything it should — we offer a free 30-minute review. We’ll look at a recent month in your QuickBooks file and tell you honestly what’s being handled well and what’s missing.

No sales pressure. If your current setup is solid, we’ll tell you. If something’s missing, you’ll know what to ask for.

Book a review: Free Consultation

Or call us: 469-888-8492

Frequently asked questions

What does a bookkeeper do every month?

A monthly bookkeeper imports and categorizes transactions across all accounts, reconciles bank and credit card accounts to actual statements, matches deposits to invoices and payments to bills, reviews AR and AP aging, records depreciation and any accrual adjustments, generates financial reports, and locks the month once the work is verified. The full checklist usually runs about 25–30 distinct tasks.

How do I know if my bookkeeper is actually reconciling my accounts?

Ask to see the reconciliation reports for the last three months. In QuickBooks Online, these are saved automatically when a reconciliation is completed. If your bookkeeper can’t produce them — or the reports show unresolved differences carrying forward month over month — reconciliation isn’t really happening.

What’s the difference between reconciliation and categorization?

Categorization is assigning each transaction to the right account in the chart of accounts. Reconciliation is verifying that the ending balance in your books matches the actual bank statement balance. They’re different steps. Categorization without reconciliation can leave you with books that look organized but don’t actually tie to reality.

Should bookkeeping be done weekly or monthly?

For most small businesses, monthly is the right cadence — full reconciliation and close after each month ends. Weekly bookkeeping can make sense for high-volume operations (restaurants, retail) where waiting a month would let too many issues accumulate. Quarterly is too infrequent and almost always leads to year-end cleanup work.

What if my bookkeeper skips some of these tasks?

Start by asking why. Sometimes there’s a legitimate reason — for example, you don’t have AR, so AR aging review isn’t applicable. Sometimes the answer is that the work isn’t being done, in which case you have a conversation to have. Skipping reconciliation, locking the period, or depreciation recording over time creates real problems.

Bottom line

Good monthly bookkeeping isn’t mysterious. It’s a defined process — about 27 tasks for a typical small business — that gets done in roughly the same order every month. If your books are being handled well, every one of these items is happening. If something’s missing, that’s where mistakes accumulate.

The simplest way to know whether your bookkeeping is being done right: ask. A good bookkeeper can walk you through their monthly process without checking notes. If yours can’t, that’s a useful piece of information.

About the author: Tax by Lonestar is a tax and bookkeeping firm based in Allen, TX, serving small businesses across Collin County and the wider DFW metro. This article is general information, not legal or tax advice for your specific situation.