home / use cases / back-office operations / month-end-checklist

Month-end close, run like a checklist

On the first working day, your Aivell opens the close checklist, pulls the month's figures from your database, runs the reconciliation checks, mails each task owner what they owe and chases until it is confirmed done. Small differences are noted, big ones escalated, and the closing summary waits for the controller's sign-off.

Watch the demo

starts when: The first working day of the month, on schedule

The problem

Every close is the same fifteen steps, and every close they are run from memory. Pull the figures. Reconcile the bank. Wait for the fuel card statement. Ask sales about the credit note. The steps live in a spreadsheet nobody updates and in the head of the one person who has done it forty times — and the close stretches to day ten because step six waited three days for a reply nobody chased.

Most of those steps are extraction, comparison and reminding: mechanical work wrapped around a handful of true judgment calls. Analysts put around 45% of professional-services work within reach of current automation — the close is where that estimate feels conservative.

How your Aivell does it

  1. Day one, the checklist wakes up. A fresh copy from your template, every task with an owner and a due day. Nothing depends on someone remembering it is the 1st.
  2. The mechanical work is simply done. Figures pulled from the database into the close workbook, reconciliation queries run — bank against ledger, sales against invoices — before the first coffee of the month.
  3. Differences are triaged by size. Under €50, they are noted and move on; above, Franca gets the detail immediately. The threshold is yours, written in the chore in one line.
  4. People are chased so you don’t have to. Each owner gets their open items on day one and a short reminder every morning until they confirm. Confirmation is the only thing that ticks a box — silence never does.
  5. Day 5, the honest picture. Done, stuck, waiting-on-whom: one status summary instead of a dozen “where are we on this?” threads.
  6. The close ends with a human. The final email to your accountant sits ready until Franca reviews and releases it — a tap from her phone if she is already gone for the evening.

Underneath, the guardrails are unambiguous: the books are read-only to the AI, the workbook is the only file it writes, the recipient list cannot grow. The checklist runs the same way every month — which is, after all, the entire idea of a close.

The chore, as you'd write it.

No flowcharts, no code — a chore is just a message to your Aivell, in your own words. It shapes it into a solid, guarded procedure and follows it to the letter. This one:

Giulia Aivell · run month end close ● active

on the first working day, open a fresh close checklist from the template

pull the month's figures from the database into the close workbook

run the reconciliation queries — bank against ledger, sales against invoices

differences under €50 go on the notes tab; anything bigger goes straight to Franca

email each task owner their open items, and again every morning until confirmed

tick a task only on the owner's confirmation, never on silence

on day 5, send the status summary — done, stuck, and who we're waiting on

the closing email to the accountant waits for Franca's sign-off

You
Got it — I'll start right away, and check with you whenever something needs a human.
Giulia Aivell

The tools it uses.

Connected with single-click passkeys — no copied tokens, no OAuth hell.

Schedule kicks off the close on day one
Database pulls figures and reconciliation queries
Spreadsheets fills the close workbook and checklist
Email chases owners, reports the status

Sensible guardrails.

Every tool can be limited to exactly what this chore needs. For this one, you might set:

Database Strictly read-only. It reports and reconciles figures; posting or amending entries is impossible, not just forbidden.
Spreadsheets Writes only inside the current month's close workbook. Prior closes and other files are off limits.
Email Recipients are the task owners on the checklist, Franca, and your accountant's address. The circle does not grow.

Questions, answered.

Does the AI post journal entries or book adjustments? +

It can't — the database guardrail is read-only, which is a property of the connection, not a promise. It finds the €312 gap between bank and ledger and brings it to Franca; a human decides what gets booked, and books it.

Our close has steps no software knows about. Can they be included? +

That is what the checklist is. "Ask Davide to confirm the fuel card statement" is a perfectly good task — the Aivell mails Davide, chases him each morning, and ticks the item when he confirms. If a human can be briefed on it, it fits.

Month-end figures are the most sensitive numbers we have. Where are they processed? +

On the box, in your office. The queries run against your own database over your own network, the workbook lives on your own storage, and the reasoning happens onboard. Your P&L never rides through anyone's cloud.

How is this different from a reminder app with a checklist? +

A reminder app tells people to do things. Your Aivell does the pullable work itself — extracts, reconciliations, the status report — and only chases people for the parts that are genuinely theirs. It also refuses to tick a box on silence, which is where checklist apps quietly lie.

Related.

What is an Aivell?

An Aivell is an on-premise AI colleague: a small box that plugs into your network, runs its own AI onboard and takes the repetitive work off your desk. Prompts, documents, data — nothing ever leaves your office. Unplug the internet: it keeps working.

You describe each task as a chore, in plain language. Your Aivell turns it into a solid, guarded procedure and runs it in the background — with guardrails on every tool, a complete audit trail, and approvals in your hand when you want them. One-time setup, fixed monthly fee. No tokens, no overages.

Watch the demo

onboard inference · air-gapped · fixed monthly fee