Accounting Firm Close Tracker Template

Every close tracker in this category reports percent complete against a task list, one client at a time. That is a fact about work already done. Whether a date is still reachable is a fact about work remaining set against a calendar the client does not have to itself, and the shared thing is whoever reviews. So a client can be green all fortnight and still miss, because the last of its work is queued behind somebody else's. Closing one client's books is a separate job from getting fourteen out the door.

Marlstead Advisory has eight monthly clients, two preparers and one reviewing manager. Working backward from each letter date through that manager's real hours, three of the eight cannot make the date they signed. Tarrantree Logistics is the most complete client in the book at 91 percent and misses by a business day, because its remaining 1.5 hours sit behind a client with 19.5 in the same queue. Ilfracombe Marine Services is the least complete at 37 percent and makes its date, because its letter allows fourteen business days and Bexmoor's allows six.

So the constraint is a day rather than a client. That manager carries five review hours daily except the five when the extended partnership and S corporation returns fall due, where one is left. Twenty review hours go missing from the middle of the window. The book wants 31 and the window holds 55, so this is placement rather than capacity, and resequencing each preparer takes three misses to none. Getting the package itself written is the next problem.