Checklists and reconciliations
Accounting reliability isn't a one-off cleanup — it's daily checkmarks. A checklist records what was checked, by whom, and with what result — for every day, week, and month. Pilots check the plane against a checklist before every flight, not 'when there's time'.
The daily checklist: each role sees its own
The conductor, the assistant, and the manager each have their own checks. A summary sheet rolls everything into one row per day: a green row = the day is closed.
| Date | Bank: operations in the system | Bank: posted | Cash desk: operations entered | Documents attached | Orders entered | Customer payments matched |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon 16.02 | ||||||
| Tue 17.02 | ||||||
| Wed 18.02 |
A red cell is visible immediately — and gets fixed on Wednesday instead of surfacing at the month close. Each column is assigned to a specific role.
The reconciliation checklist: a report is confirmed, not just sent
Key reports get their own checklist with indicators. An example — the weekly balance reconciliation: the balance in the system versus the actual for every account and every cash desk.
| Date | Store cash desk: actual | Store cash desk: in the system | Assistant's cash desk: actual | Assistant's cash desk: in the system | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22.05 | 23 434 | 23 434 | 30 000 | 30 000 | matches |
| 23.05 | 3 441 | 3 434 | 57 000 | 57 000 | off by 7 |
A 7-crown discrepancy — trivial? For the amount, yes; for the system, no: a seven found on Friday is control that wasn't lost. Unnoticed small discrepancies are how trust in the books dies.
The three scenarios rule out the worst case — 'a beautiful report you can't trust'.
Three rhythms — three checklists
What it gives you
- They don't fill themselves in — for the first weeks we check daily, until the habit becomes the team's routine.
- They don't catch what isn't in them — new operation types are added to the checklist as they appear (it's a living document).
- They don't replace people — a 'reconciled' checkmark is worth exactly as much as the honesty of whoever set it; that's why we duplicate the key reconciliations ourselves.
Checklists are tailored to your operations during implementation
The set of checks comes not from a template but from your transaction map: whatever operations you have, that's what we check. From the third month your team works by them, and we oversee the reconciliations.