The End of Day Close SOP
Purpose
A standard operating procedure (SOP) is the written, repeatable process every person follows the same way, so the books tie out the same regardless of who closed the day. The end-of-day close is the money side of shutting down: every payment taken today is accounted for, matched to a job, and reconciled, so cash and card totals agree with what the work should have produced. This is distinct from the operational job closeout, which handles job notes, photos, and prep for tomorrow. This one is the daily financial tie-out. Do it every day and a shortage shows up the same day, while you can still find it. Skip it and a month of small gaps blends into one unexplainable hole.
Scope
Applies at the end of every working day that money changed hands. Covers reconciling cash, checks, and card payments against the day's completed and invoiced work, preparing the deposit, and flagging anything that does not tie out. The physical-cash controls (who may take cash, receipts, chain of custody) live in the cash handling SOP; this close assumes those are already followed and focuses on making the day balance.
Roles and responsibilities
| Role | Responsibility |
|---|---|
| Field techs | Turn in every payment collected today with the job it belongs to |
| Office / Bookkeeper | Reconcile all payment types against jobs, prepare the deposit, lock the day |
| Owner / Manager | Review exceptions, investigate any shortage, approve the close |
Procedure
1. Collect every payment taken in the field
Each tech turns in what they collected today, cash, checks, and the record of any card payments, each tied to the job it paid for. A payment with no job attached is a reconciliation you cannot complete. The handoff happens at end of shift while the tech is present to answer for anything unclear, not left in a truck overnight.
2. Reconcile cash against the jobs it should match
Count the cash and match the total to the jobs that were paid in cash today. The two numbers should agree. If cash is short or over, find it now: a miskeyed amount, a payment logged to the wrong job, change given wrong. A small discrepancy caught the same day is a five-minute fix; the same discrepancy found weeks later is unsolvable.
3. Reconcile checks and confirm they are endorsed
Match checks in hand to the invoices they pay, and confirm each is properly filled out and endorsed for deposit. A check that does not match an open invoice, or is made out wrong, gets flagged before it goes to the bank, not bounced back to you days later.
4. Settle and match the card batch
Reconcile the day's card payments against the processor's batch total for the day. The processor's settled total should equal the card payments you recorded against jobs. A gap here usually means a payment was run but never recorded to a job, or recorded twice. Catch it while the transactions are fresh and identifiable.
5. Confirm every completed job was billed
Cross-check the day's completed work against invoices raised. Work that was finished but never invoiced is money you earned and did not ask for, and it is the single easiest revenue to lose. Anything completed and unbilled gets flagged to bill the same day or first thing next morning, so nothing slips through as free work.
6. Prepare the deposit and record it
Total the cash and checks, prepare the deposit per your banking routine, and record the deposit total so it can be matched against the bank later. Keep the deposit secured until it is lodged. A prepared, recorded deposit is what lets you tie the bank statement back to the day without guessing.
7. Lock the day and escalate exceptions
Once everything ties, close the day. Anything that did not reconcile, a shortage, an unmatched payment, an unbilled completed job, goes to the owner or manager as a named exception, not buried. The whole value of a daily close is that a problem surfaces today. An exception that gets rolled forward "to look at later" is one nobody ever solves.
Watch out for
- Payments turned in with no job attached. They cannot be reconciled; require the job on every handoff.
- Rolling a shortage forward. Find it the same day or you never will.
- Completed work left uninvoiced. It is the easiest money to lose; check for it every close.
- Letting the daily close become a weekly one. A week of mixed days is far harder to untangle.
References
- SBA guidance on small-business cash flow and daily reconciliation
- See related: The Cash Handling SOP; End of Day Closeout Routine SOP; Month-End Close Checklist
- Trade-standard practice for daily payment reconciliation