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The monthly closing with AI: complete checklist and time savings
The monthly closing does not have to take a whole day. With this checklist you complete all the checks together with your AI assistant, from bank rules to ageing analysis.
Friday 31 July, mid-afternoon. The last working day of the month, and the closing list is still not done. The bank is updated through Wednesday, the depreciations still need to go into the journal, and on the suspense account for clearing items sits an amount no one can place anymore. August begins on Monday, and by then you want figures instead of backlogs.
That is how the month-end close goes at many companies: a tough exercise of lists, exports and yet more recalculating. It can be more compact. With an AI assistant that looks directly into your Exact Online administration, the close becomes a conversation. For each control step you ask one question and get an answer with the underlying entries included. Below you will find the complete checklist, with what you ask and what you get back at each step.
From a stack of reports to a conversation
Through Exact AI Connect you connect your own AI assistant to Exact Online, using MCP, the open connector standard for AI assistants; you can read the technology behind it in our explanation of the connector. For the close, this matters most: every answer comes from your own administration, and the AI always presents each write action to you for confirmation first.
So you no longer switch between reports, exports and spreadsheets. You work through the checklist from top to bottom, in plain English, and ask follow-up questions wherever something stands out. The order below is deliberate: first make sure everything is booked, then check whether it is correct.
Start with the basics: bank, journal and sub-administrations
Bank updated and reconciled. Ask which bank lines from last month have not yet been reconciled. You get the list with date and amount, and you can act straight away: match outstanding invoices to payments, including partial payments, and write off any remaining difference to payment differences. Every connection comes back as a proposal first; you confirm.
Journal entries complete. Have the AI place this month's journal entries next to those of last month. If the fixed depreciation entry or the payroll journal entry is missing, you notice it immediately. The AI can prepare the missing entry for you, with your approval as the final step.
Sub-administrations connected. Ask for the outstanding balance of your debtors and creditors and set it next to the ledger balances on the balance sheet. If it matches, you tick it off. If there is a difference, you know right away where to look, for example a manual entry that landed directly on the ledger account.
Finish with VAT, suspense accounts and ageing
VAT categories correct. Ask for the VAT totals per code over the past month and have the AI search for entries without a VAT code or with a code that does not match the revenue. The AI also recognises reverse-charge VAT and EU supplies. Anyone who keeps this up monthly starts the quarterly return without surprises.
Suspense accounts empty. An empty suspense account is the fastest proof that the month adds up. Ask which suspense accounts still show a balance and dig into each one: which entries are in there, and which relation do they belong to? Clearing items, queries and amounts still to be invoiced surface automatically this way.
Ageing assessed. Finish with the ageing analysis of accounts receivable and payable. Ask who has been outstanding for more than 60 days and have a draft payment reminder written for those items straight away. You send them yourself afterwards; the AI does not send e-mails on its own.
The time saved, and the checklist to keep
That depends on how you close the books now. The gain lies in the intermediate steps that disappear. No exporting reports, no comparisons in Excel, no hunting for the right view; you ask the question and assess the answer. What remains is the work that really matters: explaining differences and deciding what to do about them. And because a single check takes hardly any effort, you no longer skip any. Our experience is that this very consistency improves the quality of the figures the most.
Close the month with a look at the result. Have last month's profit and loss account placed next to the one before it and explain the outliers. Only then is the month truly closed.
The checklist at a glance, to copy into your own closing file:
- Bank updated and all bank rules reconciled
- Fixed journal entries posted (depreciation, payroll journal entry)
- Subledgers reconciled to the general ledger
- VAT totals checked per code, entries without a code traced
- Suspense accounts empty or explained
- Ageing of accounts receivable and payable assessed, reminders prepared
Example prompts for your own close
Copy these questions into your connected AI assistant and work through them in order:
Which bank rules from last month have not yet been reconciled?
Which suspense accounts still show a balance? Show the amount per account.
Give the total of last month's entries per VAT code.
Which debtors have been outstanding for more than 60 days?
Show last month's profit and loss account and compare it with the month before.
Want to try it yourself? Start for free with Exact AI Connect →
Frequently asked questions
No, and that is a good thing. The AI collects, compares and flags; assessing and approving remains human work. Every entry the AI suggests, you confirm first. Think of it as an assistant that does the groundwork, not a replacement for you or your accountant.
For most checks it does not. Reconciliation, suspense accounts, VAT totals and the ageing analysis work with standard functions and therefore with any subscription. If you want to analyse monthly trends across large datasets, use the trial period or the analytics variant.
Yes. If you prefer, set the connector to read-only or limit write permissions per role; you can read how to set this up in our article about setting permissions. Exact AI Connect is also ISO 27001 certified and independently pentested; we only store financial data with the Analytics subscription, in a secure analysis environment within the EU that we delete as soon as you stop.
Yes. A firm connects multiple client administrations under one organisation and repeats the checks per administration. The authorisation continues to apply per user and per administration: the AI only sees what the logged-in user is allowed to see.
