Open finance skill

Month-end close preview

What must be resolved before closing the month?

Check the records and reviews needed to finalize the month’s books. Show completed checks, missing support and pending approvals without posting entries or declaring the period closed.

Records you need

✓Close month
✓Bank and accounting comparison status
✓Supporting calculations and open questions

What you get

✓Ready items
✓Items blocking close
✓Missing or unknown support

Checks performed

✓Current source records
✓Required account comparisons complete
✓Reviewer sign-off

From finding to decision

A changed entry can invalidate a previously passing statement check.

Closing the month means checking and finalizing its accounting records. Moving an entry’s date can leave the month-end total unchanged while changing a balance for a bank statement ending earlier. Compare an accepted open question with its retained records and approval before reopening it. Repeating the review with unchanged evidence does not justify another correcting entry.

Identify which accounts and periods each approved change affects. Decide which checks must run again. For an existing exception, compare the original record IDs, file versions, ending date, accounting entries and approval with the record your accountant previously accepted. Keep any missing or limited source records visible.
After the change, rerun the checks for that statement cycle and the invoice and payment records. If the source records or the approval changed, reopen the exception for review. If they did not change, keep the accountant's previously accepted decision. Do not repeat an outdated proposed correction just because the checks ran again.
Keep the review status separate from final approval. Record what the owner reports, what the AI assistant actually checked in the accounting software and what the accountant approved. An owner-reported empty queue is not a source check; neither statement alone completes final sign-off.

What each review status means

Ready for review: the required records and checks are present.
Accepted estimate: a reviewer approved an approximate amount with its basis and a plan to check it later.
Missing records: a required source record is still needed.
Awaiting review: the responsible person has not yet decided.
Owner report: record what the owner says was completed.
Checked in the software: retain the actual records the AI assistant inspected.
Final approval: retain the accountant’s decision. Neither an owner report nor an AI check is final approval.

Evidence ready for review

Required checks have current records and remaining questions have named owners. Record practical readiness and any accepted source limitation separately from formal sign-off.

Who makes the next decision?

The controller, the person responsible for the books, accepts the remaining differences and protects the period from further changes only after reviewing the current close.

Collect the supporting records from your software

Level diagnostic method reviewed 2026-10-09. Apply it to the selected records and accounting policy; the teaching example does not resolve a live account.

Financial evidence in practice

What does ready for close mean?

Separate supported records, accepted estimates, source-needed items, posted entries and a protected period. These states answer different questions. An estimate needs an explicit basis and true-up trigger; a polished pack can still contain an unsupported balance.

Run the check

List evidence and acceptance state for each material balance.
Accrue earned payroll days only from a reviewed service-period basis.
Record the next payroll or other trigger for estimate true-up.
Verify native postings and period protection independently.

Fictional example: Close and WIP acceptance states

The fictional invoice is supported; earned labor is estimated with a next-register true-up; cost to complete needs a source. Neither posting nor period protection is established.

Invented teaching inputs in USD cents.

Inspect the expected output

{
  "fictional": true,
  "unit": "USD cents",
  "id": "close-wip",
  "supported": [
    "invoice"
  ],
  "estimates": [
    "earned-labor"
  ],
  "sourceNeeded": [
    "cost-to-complete"
  ],
  "posted": false,
  "protected": false,
  "completeEvidence": false,
  "limitation": "This is teaching arithmetic from supplied invented inputs, not source authenticity, financial assurance or authority to post."
}

Input JSON CSV summary Expected output Runnable code

Reproduce this calculation

Download the code and input into one folder, then run:

node reproduce.mjs close-wip.input.json

The code checks declared units and identities and refuses unsupported inputs. No browser or customer account is used. Source authenticity and accounting approval require separate evidence.

Reviewed 2026-10-06. Level financial-control guidance, with visibly fictional teaching examples. The example shows a control boundary, not a measured customer outcome or industry benchmark.

Read this content revision history

Continue with the related financial decision →

Guided synthetic example

See the check from input to decision

The July close has an AR check ready, but bank reconciliation, missing accrual support and reviewer sign-off remain open.

How review effort might be shared

An illustrative allocation is 15% collecting records, 20% applying checks, 10% flagging results, 25% investigating reasons, 20% finance review and 10% choosing an action. These percentages were not measured across engagements. Actual effort varies with data quality, complexity and the issue found.

Start with the source records

Close area	Status	Evidence
Bank reconciliations	Blocked	1 account open
Accrual schedules	Unknown	Support missing
AR subledger	Ready	Tied
Reviewer sign-off	Blocked	Pending

Apply the documented check

Require fresh evidence for every applicable close control and preserve ready, blocked, unknown, and not-applicable separately.

Surface the flagged result

Needs review

July is not close-ready because a bank account is unreconciled, accrual evidence is missing, and sign-off is pending.

Use recorded finance judgment to analyze possible reasons

At Level, we record the review logic, known explanations, and questions our finance professionals use in this situation. AI applies that documented human judgment to organize the most plausible reasons, without pretending it knows which reason is true.

Possible reasons to investigate

The remaining items may be small, but close readiness depends on control completion, not just estimated dollar impact.

Make the final human judgment

In a Level engagement, a Level finance professional validates the source evidence, challenges the AI-assisted analysis, and decides which explanation is supported.

Who owns each blocker?

Is the source evidence current?

Has the reviewer signed the completed controls?

Make the operating decision

Resolve the named blockers and obtain controller sign-off before declaring the period closed.

Each skill uses an independent synthetic scenario. Shared month labels do not mean the examples describe one company or a single financial period.

Accounting review examples

More checks using invented records

These are additional review scenarios to discuss with your accountant or automation team. They describe what to check and when a person needs to investigate. They are illustrative, not software tests you can run here or proof of how a particular vendor works.

An AI suggestion still needs approval

Test: Show the AI suggestion alongside the source records, reviewer decision and proposed accounting change.

Expected: The suggestion remains unapproved until the evidence and required review support it.

Pause and investigate when: AI is the only support or the original records are missing.

A dashboard can be behind the books

Test: Compare the dashboard's data version and refresh time with the records already checked in the accounting system.

Expected: A stale dashboard cannot be described as current.

Pause and investigate when: The refresh failed or the dashboard uses a different version of the records.

Download 80 accounting checks (JSON) →Read the accounting integration guides →

Use this system

Start with the example, then inspect the structure

The JSON download is a sample record file to inspect with an AI assistant or developer. It is not a file to upload into your accounting software.

Download the invented input and expected output.
Replace one field at a time with a safe test value.
Compare the result with the expected structure.
Have a finance professional review every exception before acting.

Download example JSON Open the capability registry

Website example JSON and registry: CC BY 4.0 (attribution required). Downloadable toolkit ZIP: MIT. Each version identifies its own frozen examples.

Developer preview: AI-assistant helper (MCP)

This tool call returns fixed, invented sample records only. It does not connect to your books. Read the setup instructions.

run_synthetic_example {"slug":"month-end-close-preview"}

Human review is part of the system

This check organizes evidence and surfaces exceptions. A person with finance domain expertise still needs to interpret the result, validate the source records, and discuss the operating decision.

Open source does not mean open client data. We publish reusable finance tools, checks, templates, and playbooks. Client records, workpapers, credentials, communications, and private configurations remain confidential.

Use it yourself, or bring us the messy part

Get a one-page plan for checking your records

Tell us where the records stop making sense. We will reply with the first check to run, the records it needs, and the decision that still needs human finance judgment.

Install the free skills yourself