Intensive workshop · Transformation
What your books owe you
When a month is genuinely closed, what to check before accepting it, and which questions belong to the owner.
- Duration
- 3 hours 30 min
- Delivery
- On site · Virtual
- Participants
- From 5 to 16 participants
- Investment
- Request a quote
Investment depends on scope, number of participants and delivery mode. We prepare a proposal at no obligation.
The problem it solves
The arrangement with the books is usually settled in the first year and never discussed again. Someone started keeping the records, it worked while the company was small, and nobody ever wrote down what gets delivered, on what date, or what else could be asked for.
What follows is a company that receives documents rather than information. Figures arrive that the owner cannot tell are complete, a month is called closed without anyone having defined the word, and a bank reconciliation may or may not have been done, an enormous difference that is invisible from outside. When something does not agree, the conversation turns into an investigation instead of a review.
What is lost is not accounting precision. It is decision time. The month's numbers arrive once the following month is already under way, and an owner who does not know what to require ends up accepting whatever calendar and format they are given, even when neither is usable for deciding anything.
What it covers
The workshop is run from the owner's chair, not the accountant's. The organising question is what someone paying to have their records kept is entitled to expect, and the answer is built as a written agreement: which deliverables, on what date, backed by what evidence, and what exactly it means that a period is closed.
A good part of the time goes to review. An owner does not have to redo the accountant's work, but a few things are worth checking before accepting a close: that the cash in the books agrees with the bank, that what is owed to you and by you carries an age and a name, that no personal spending is mixed in, that large or unusual items come with an explanation. That review is practised on real material.
The last block is the conversation. There are questions an accountant answers gladly and almost nobody asks, and reasonable requests that were simply never made. The boundary on the other side gets marked too: keeping records, preparing returns and issuing an opinion on financial statements are different trades with different licences, and it pays to know which one you have contracted.
What participants learn
- Set out in writing which deliverables your books produce, and on what date.
- Define what it means, in your company, for a period to be closed.
- Review a monthly close with a short list of checks that do not require an accountant.
- Tell bookkeeping, return preparation and professional opinion apart, and know which you contracted.
- Take whoever keeps your records the questions that are not being asked today.
Agenda
- What well-kept books produce, and how often
- What closing a period means and who declares it closed
- Bank reconciliation: the check everything else rests on
- Receivables and payables with an age and a name attached
- The chart of accounts: why yours should look like your business
- The evidence behind each entry, and where it lives
- Bookkeeping, returns and professional opinion: three separate services
- The owner's review: checks that take minutes
What the organisation leaves with
- A written agreement on deliverables and dates for your bookkeeping.
- Your own definition of a monthly close, with what must be done before declaring it.
- An owner's review checklist, short enough to run every month.
- A set of questions for your next meeting with whoever keeps your records.
Programme details
- Format
- Intensive workshop
- Also available as
- Workshop · Executive talk
- Languages
- Español · English
- Includes
- Participant workbook
- Action plan
- Post-training resources
- Facilitation
- ALUD Consulting LLC — Global Business Transformation.
Who it is for
- Owners who receive financial statements and do not know what they can require
- Partners signing off on decisions built from numbers someone else prepared
- Administrative managers who coordinate with an outside accountant
- Companies changing accountants or formalising the arrangement for the first time
Frequently asked questions
- Does ALUD keep the books or prepare our returns?
- No. ALUD is not a certified public accounting firm: it does not keep records, prepare returns, audit, or issue an opinion on financial statements. This workshop builds the owner's capacity to direct that function and require what is due.
- Our accountant has been with us for years. Will this damage the relationship?
- It should not, and if it does you need to know. Almost everything worked on here consists of reasonable requests a good accountant welcomes, because they tidy up their own work too. A professional who bristles at a delivery date and a reconciliation is telling you something.
- Does it apply if we keep the books in-house?
- Yes, and the content barely changes. What changes is who signs the agreement: your own staff member instead of an outside provider. The owner's review is identical and counts for more, because no third party is looking.
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Read more →Request this programme
Tell us the context and we will prepare a proposal tailored to your organisation. No obligation.
Working this inside the organisation
If this challenge will not be settled in one session, ALUD Consulting LLC works it as consulting: management consulting, human resources, strategy, organisational design, leadership development and business transformation.