Sample month-end close calendar What day your books actually close.
Millrace Finance Partners runs outsourced accounting for small and mid-sized US companies and nonprofits on a standard close calendar that targets the fifth business day, which is faster than the half of finance teams that take longer than five business days (Ledge, 2025). Your date is published a month ahead, and if we miss it and the cause is ours, we refund half that month’s fee. The point is accurate books on a date you can plan a board meeting around. Here is where that target sits against the published survey data, and the calendar we work to.
Updated
These services do not require a state licence, and we are not a CPA firm.
How long does a month-end close take?
Half of finance teams close their books within five business days and half take longer, according to Ledge’s 2025 survey. Five business days or fewer puts a close in the faster half.
50%
of finance teams close in more than five business days. Millrace Finance Partners’ standard calendar targets day five, and your date is published a month ahead.
1 to 3 business days
18%
4 to 5 business days
32%
6 to 7 business days
23%
More than 7 business days
27%
Shares of surveyed finance teams. The highlighted band is where our standard calendar’s target falls. That target is at the median and short of the top quartile, and we would rather print that than round it in our own favour.
Source. Ledge, The state of month-end close in 2025, reported by CFO.com: 18% close in one to three business days, 32% in four to five, 23% in six to seven, and 27% in more than seven. 18 + 32 + 23 + 27 = 100. Separately, APQC’s General Accounting benchmark, reported by CFO.com in March 2018, puts the median close for the 2,300 organisations that answered at 6.4 calendar days, with the top quartile at 4.8 and the bottom quartile at 10 or more. We quote the business-day survey because our own target is set in business days; comparing a business day against a calendar day would flatter us by about two days.
Published in advance, so you can hold us to it
Our standard close calendar runs five business days, each with a named owner. Yours is agreed in the first month and published before it starts.
- Day 1Cut-off confirmed, cash posted, card feeds pulled.
- Day 2Bank, card and payroll reconciliations complete.
- Day 3Accruals, prepaids, revenue cut-off and fixed assets.
- Day 4Trial balance reviewed and signed off by name.
- Day 5Package delivered: P&L, balance sheet, cash, variance notes.
If we miss a published close date and the cause is ours, we refund half that month’s fee.
Send us last month, and we will send this back about your company.
Email us your last close calendar and your last month-end P&L. Within five business days we will send you, free, where your close actually loses its days, which accounts are not reconciling, and the three things we would change first. In writing, with the arithmetic attached.
On the call we can show you a sample of our own work, so you see the reporting pack you would actually receive rather than a description of it.
You keep what we send whatever happens next, and there is no fee for it. We are not going to put you on a mailing list, because we do not have one. If your books are in good shape we will tell you that and you will have spent nothing to find out.
Over time we may publish anonymised, aggregate observations from these reviews: the median day a close lands, the causes that recur. Never your name, never your figures, and never anything that could identify you. If you would rather we left your review out of even that, say so in the email and we will.