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Month-End Close Guide

This guide walks through closing a month in VMX: getting the accounts-receivable side settled, pulling the numbers your bookkeeper needs, filing sales tax, and reviewing how the month went. Each step links to the full reference page for that report.

Not every business does every step — skip what doesn't apply to you. The order matters for the A/R steps (charges before statements, credit cleanup before aging), so work top to bottom.

Step 1 — Finish the month at the registers

Make sure every drawer has been Z'd through the last day of the month, so register totals are final. Then check Reports → Registers → Drawers → Over/Under for any drawer that counted meaningfully over or short and resolve discrepancies while memories are fresh. See Over/Under and Opening & Z-ing Registers.

Step 2 — Clean up open credits before statements

Run Reports → Accounts → Open Credits and apply unapplied credits to unpaid invoices — otherwise statements and aging will show customers owing money they've already paid. The report's auto-apply feature clears the simple one-invoice cases in bulk. See All Open Credit.

Step 3 — Apply service charges, then send statements

If you charge interest on past-due house accounts, apply service charges before generating statements so the new charges appear on them. Go to Reports → Accounts → Service Charges, review the calculated amounts, and click Apply. Then generate and send statements from Reports → Accounts → Statements. See Service Charges and Statements — the Statements page describes this monthly sequencing in detail.

Step 4 — Pull the numbers that tie to your books

The Accounting Report (Reports → Accounts → Accounting Report) is the month-end source of truth — it's the report designed to tie to your accounting system. Run it for the last day of the month to get:

  • Sales for the period
  • Inventory value (total and by department)
  • Gift Card Liability and Store Credit Liability — the outstanding balances you owe customers
  • A/R Totals and Customer Deposit Totals

See Accounting Report. Because the report takes a date, you can also run it later "as of" the month-end date — see the next section.

Step 5 — A/R aging and balances

Run Reports → Accounts → A/R Customer Aging to see who owes what and how old it is. If you're reconciling after the month has rolled over, use A/R Customer Balances As Of to get each customer's balance as of the month-end date. See A/R Customer Aging and A/R Balances As Of. For the invoice-by-invoice detail behind the totals, use A/R Detail.

Step 6 — Sales tax

Run Reports → Accounts → Taxes for the month and download the CSV for your filing. The report totals tax by jurisdiction/tax type and by receipt. See Sales Tax Report.

Step 7 — Review the month's sales

With the books handled, look at how the month actually went:

  • Departments PTD and Departments PTD vs — this month's department sales, alone or against last year. See Departments PTD and Departments PTD vs.
  • Daily Over Time — key daily numbers side by side across the month, with trends. See Daily Over Time.
  • Media Report — the month's tender totals, gift cards sold, deposits taken, and account payments. See Media Report.

Getting figures "as of" a past date

You don't have to run month-end reports on the last day of the month. These reports accept a date and reconstruct the numbers as they stood:

  • Accounting Report — inventory value, gift card and store credit liability, and A/R totals as of the date you pick.
  • A/R Customer Balances As Of — every customer's A/R balance on that date.
  • Statements — a customer's statement always reflects their account history through the statement date.

So if it's the 5th and you need clean numbers for the 31st, run the reports for the 31st.

Fiscal years: when "year to date" doesn't mean January 1

On most VMX reports, YTD means January 1 of the current calendar year. If your books run on a fiscal year that doesn't start in January (configured by VMX from your accounting setup), the Departments PTD vs report also offers FYTD columns measured from your fiscal year start. When comparing a VMX YTD number against your accounting system, check which year-start each side is using — a February fiscal start means the two "year to date" figures cover different ranges by design.

"% of sales" is not "% change"

Two different percentages come up at month end, and they answer different questions:

If a percentage looks wrong, first check which of the two you're looking at.

Where gift card sales appear at month end

Gift card sales are money you've been paid for goods you haven't sold yet, so they are deliberately not in department or item sales figures. At month end, find them in:

  • The GIFT CARDS section of the Media Report — cards sold in the period.
  • The Gift Cards reports — every card's balance and the period's activity.
  • Gift Card Liability on the Accounting Report — the outstanding balance for your books.

The sale that finally uses the gift card is the one that shows up in sales reports — with the gift card as its tender.

Questions this guide doesn't cover

For "which report shows me…?" questions beyond month end, see Which Report Answers…?. For anything else, ask VMXpert in your VMX system or contact help@vmxllc.com.