Close
In accounting, close means the process of finalizing a period.
- Layer
- Lexicon
- Defined in
- Lexicon
- Components
- 3
Not a rule
Bookkeeping convention — not codified. US GAAP governs recognition, measurement and presentation — not the mechanics a bookkeeper uses to get there. Anyone citing a standard for this word is citing the wrong thing.
Every citation in this system, with the text we read and the date we checked it, is in US GAAP and where these rules come from.
The lesson that teaches this
Accounting, 0 to 1 — a free course taught end to end on one month of one company, with the spreadsheet exercises to work it yourself.
Close, in use
Quoted from the 22 documents that use the word — what it does to an interface, in the spec's own sentence.
That sentence is close to a summary of this entire design system.
The month-end close is the central workflow of accounting software.
Families 9–13 are the domain layer — the general ledger, receivables, payables, the close, controls, consolidation, and metrics.
For founders
The same idea written for a founder: what it costs a startup that ignores it, and what to do in a real month.
- Monthly closeFinishing a month's books: every account reconciled and tied, adjustments booked, statements produced and signed off.
- Why startups should close their books every monthA monthly close turns a bank balance into numbers an investor, an auditor or a 409A firm will accept. What it is, and why it gets expensive to skip.
- Burn rate and runway: how to calculate them correctlyGross burn, net burn and months of runway, done the way an investor checks them: from cash, averaged, and with the hires you’ve already committed to.
- Form 1120: what to give your tax preparer, and whenWhat a startup hands its tax preparer for Form 1120: closed books, a balance sheet that ties to Schedule L, book-to-tax items, ownership and 1099s.
What it is not called
Each of these is a real word for a different thing. Using it here is what makes a product read as though it was built by someone who has not done the work.
- month end as a verb
Components that render this
The concept is not documentation-only. These are the components that name it in their specification, grouped and stated exactly as the catalog states them.
Components that render the terms it depends on
Little in the catalog names this concept outright, but its definition is built out of others that are named. These render period.
4Swaps & FX
Family spec5Ledger & tables
Family spec9Accounting core (GL)
Family spec11Payables (AP)
Family spec12Close, controls & consolidation
Family specTerms this one depends on
Also in Close
Work with this concept
The calculators that compute it and the ledger payloads that carry it. A definition is where a reader starts; these are where they go next.
Defined in Lexicon. This page is generated from that document, so the two cannot disagree.