Monthly P&L
Invoices mirror from QuickBooks every week and expenses are entered at month end, then the month closes into a published P&L days later. The books are the source of truth, and the truth arrives on a rhythm. The close itself is designed here; today a person runs it in QuickBooks.
One month, four beats
The P&L is not an event, it is the last step of a pipeline that runs all month. By the time the month closes, most of the work is already done.
Invoices mirror from QuickBooks every Monday, mapped to CRM companies. Expenses are entered by hand at month end.
The expense entry closes the month in QuickBooks and the P&L is run from it. Assembling it automatically is designed, not yet scheduled.
Exceptions get categorized, anomalies get explained, the statement gets signed off.
The statement goes out in the same format every month, with margin against forecast.
How the close works
The invoice sync mirrors every QuickBooks invoice into the admin each Monday. Expenses have no sync: a person enters them into QuickBooks through the monthly expense entry. Revenue never piles up at close; costs arrive in one pass.
The design: every line lands in its category by rule, client revenue by line of business, vendor costs by type, and a draft statement exists within days of month end. No scheduled routine does this yet; today the P&L is run in QuickBooks by the person closing the month.
The review is short because it only covers what the rules could not place: new vendors, unusual charges, anything that moved strangely against forecast. Judgment goes where judgment is needed.
The statement goes out as a shareable report in the same format every month: revenue, cost, and margin by line of business, with the trend against forecast. Consistency is what makes it readable at a glance.
The seven elements
Every workflow we document has the same anatomy: seven elements, each assigned to a human, a machine, or both. This is the Centaur Map from our workflow design method.
Month end. The close does not wait for someone to feel ready.
Invoices mirrored from QuickBooks every Monday and mapped to CRM companies; expenses entered into QuickBooks by a person at month end.
Categorization exceptions and anything unusual. The judgment stays human; the routine does not.
Every line lands in its P&L category by rule, not by memory.
A monthly P&L statement: revenue, cost, and margin by line of business, reviewed by a human before it goes out.
Published as a shareable report, the same format every month.
Margin trends against forecast, month over month. The P&L measures the business; the trend measures the P&L.
The standing rules
- QuickBooks is the only source of financial truth
- Invoices sync weekly; the close never starts from zero on revenue
- Rules categorize the routine, humans categorize the exceptions
- The same format ships every month, no redesigns
Why it works
- A fast close means decisions are made on last month, not last quarter
- A weekly invoice mirror turns month end from a project into a checkpoint
- Forecast comparison makes every P&L a conversation, not a filing
- Consistent format means trends jump out instead of hiding