Services Firm Month-End Close Checklist
A close checklist for professional services: timesheet completeness, WIP and unbilled review, revenue recognition, and the project-level reporting that partners actually read.
What you'll learn
- Timesheet completeness as the close gatekeeper
- WIP, unbilled, and deferred revenue steps in order
- Project margin review that catches problems mid-engagement
- The reports worth producing, and the ones worth killing
In a services firm, the close is only as good as the timesheets underneath it. Everything downstream is arithmetic.
What's inside
A services close has one gatekeeper: timesheet completeness. Until the hours are in, WIP is wrong, unbilled is wrong, recognition is wrong, and every project report is a draft.
This checklist runs the close in dependency order, so nothing gets computed twice.
- 1
Gatekeeper: time and expenses
Timesheet completeness at 100% for the period, chased by name
- 2
WIP and billing
WIP reviewed per project: what is ready to bill, what is stuck and why
- 3
Revenue recognition
Fixed-fee projects: percent complete reviewed with delivery leads, not extrapolated
- 4
Reporting
Project margin report by engagement, with budget vs. actual hours
Keep exploring Professional Services.
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