Period-end close

A close is a sequenced list of tasks rather than a single action: putting late documents into the correct period, booking accruals and provisions, revaluing foreign currency balances at period-end rates, recording inventory and depreciation, then taking a trial balance and building the statements. The steps depend on each other. A trial balance can foot perfectly while the customer and supplier accounts behind it are still disputed, and a total that agrees says nothing about whether the individual lines sit in the right place.

Closes usually run long because of searching, not booking. Unexplained bank movements, confirmations the counterparty has not answered, and receipts nobody can assign to an invoice all pile into the last three days. APQC benchmarks put a monthly close at 4.8 days in the top quartile, 6.4 days at the median and above 10 days in the bottom quartile. Ventana Research reported in 2023 that 58% of organizations close within six business days, while 31% automate most of their reconciliations. Continuous reconciliation is the approach of clearing that work as data arrives instead of stacking it at month end.

In Türkiye the calendar has extra fixed points. Sales documents move through the tax authority's e-Fatura system, e-Arsiv covers customers outside that system, and statutory ledgers are kept electronically as e-Defter, with a certified summary of them, the berat, uploaded to the tax authority on a set schedule, so a subsidiary's close has external checkpoints its parent may not recognise from other countries. The most common measurement mistake is elsewhere, though: judging a close purely by day count. A team that closes in five days and then posts seven correcting entries next month is not ahead of a team that closes in eight and posts none. And if a locked period can be reopened, the reopening itself belongs in the record, with a reason.