Decide what counts before you count
- Agree what a unit is. A product-only sale is real gross but not a unit.
- Agree what belongs to this month. A deal delivered on the last evening belongs to that month in the store's own time zone, not in a server's.
- Agree what is pending. Factory orders and locates that have not arrived are not this month's pipeline.
Reconcile the deals
- List every delivered deal and every dead deal. A dead deal that is still counted is the most common surprise.
- Look for delivered deals with no delivery date, and deals with no date at all. They fall out of every month.
- Check for duplicates and for deals that never actually delivered.
Finalize gross
The number the desk quoted and the number accounting posted are different. Finalize the posted figure for each delivered deal, and treat the quote as a placeholder until then. Record the variance, because a real one means a funding shortfall to chase.
Settle the money that is still out
- Review contracts in transit and age them from delivery.
- Confirm what funded and send back what did not.
- Chase titles and any paperwork still owed.
Close the month
- Archive finalized deliveries only, so unfinished work stays on the worklist.
- Carry unfinished deals forward into the new month on purpose.
- Keep the typed figures for the month, such as expenses and wholesale, next to the computed ones so they can be compared.