As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly close your month-end accounts.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   Someone with a licence or accountable authority has to sign this before it counts.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, power-user skill, and roughly 2 hours until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open the accounting system and export the trial balance, general ledger, sales ledger, purchase ledger and journal report for the month being closed.
   2. Gather the month’s bank and card statements, unpaid invoices, credit notes, payroll summary, VAT records, fixed asset register, loan statements, prior month trial balance and documented accounting policies.
   3. Remove duplicate files, label each file with its source and period, and confirm that the opening balances agree with the previously approved month-end accounts.
   4. Paste the prompt into an approved AI tool and upload the labelled records, asking it to produce reconciliations, variance analysis, proposed journals and a list of open items.
   5. Compare every AI-reported balance with the accounting system and every proposed journal with its supporting invoice, statement, payroll record or policy before entering anything.
   6. Resolve or document each unreconciled item, then ask the AI to update the close checklist using only the evidence you have added.
   7. Send the reconciliation pack, exception list and proposed journals to your accountant or qualified finance professional for approval before posting material entries or using the accounts for VAT, tax, statutory reporting or business decisions.

   Prompt

   Help me prepare, but not independently approve, the month-end close for a UK business.
   
   Business type: [business type]
   Accounting basis: [accrual or cash]
   Month being closed: [month and year]
   Accounting software and chart of accounts: [software and relevant account names]
   Close policy and materiality threshold: [policy or state that none is documented]
   
   I will provide the available bank and card statements, trial balance, general ledger, sales ledger, purchase ledger, invoices, credit notes, payroll summary, VAT records, fixed asset register, loan statements, prior month trial balance and relevant recurring journals.
   
   Use only the information in the supplied files and the details above. Do not invent transactions, balances, dates, VAT treatment, accruals, prepayments or accounting policies. Keep a clear source reference for every conclusion and mark missing or conflicting information as OPEN rather than guessing.
   
   Produce:
   1. A close checklist showing each control, its status, source evidence and the person who must complete it.
   2. Bank, card, sales ledger, purchase ledger, payroll, VAT, fixed asset and loan reconciliations, showing the calculation and every unreconciled item.
   3. A variance report against the prior month, with explanations only where the files support them.
   4. A list of proposed accruals, prepayments, depreciation entries, bad debt provisions, foreign exchange entries and other journals. For each, show the debit, credit, amount, date, rationale, source and confidence, and leave the amount blank where evidence is missing.
   5. A list of exceptions that require a finance professional or business owner to decide.
   6. A final close status of READY FOR HUMAN APPROVAL or NOT READY, never CLOSED.
   
   Do not give tax or accounting advice as if it were definitive. State that this is not professional advice and identify which items an accountant or qualified finance professional should approve before the accounts are used for VAT, tax, statutory reporting or important decisions.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.