A month of accounting advisory: bank, books and close

You send invoices, connect the bank and drop PDFs into a shared folder. A few weeks later a message arrives: the month is booked. That exchange rarely explains what happened in between.

Useful monthly accounting advisory records transactions, reconciles banks when the engagement includes it, and closes the period with balances and open items you can explain, without confusing that rhythm with the quarterly tax calendar. That is the service level proposed here, inside the framework of orderly accounts. Commercial Code, Article 25. Whether a full reconciliation, a management report or a meeting sits inside the fee depends on the engagement and on the duties that apply to your activity.

This guide is about the month of the books: what usually stays in your software, what the firm does with statements and ledgers, and how to tell a freelancer with record books apart from a company under the Commercial Code. It is not the calendar of quarterly tax forms, and it is not a line-by-line reconciliation tutorial. For the tax service and the quarter, use the routes at the end.

The engagement organises who does each task. It does not move your tax position: the elements of a tax obligation cannot be altered by private acts or agreements, which produce no effect before the Administration. General Tax Act, Article 17. You need to know what the firm reviewed and what is still open, rather than settling for “the accountant handles it”.

What monthly accounting advisory is (and is not)

People searching for accounting advisory often blur three jobs: issuing invoices, keeping period records, and filing taxes. The accounting month is mainly about the records. Invoicing and banking feed that work; the tax quarter consumes it later, under different rules and deadlines.

The legal starting point is not the same for everyone. Every entrepreneur must keep orderly accounts suited to the business, allowing a chronological trail of all transactions and the periodic preparation of balances and inventories. Commercial Code, Article 25. That framework requires specific books (the journal and the inventories and annual accounts book) and leaves room for special laws. It does not list a procedure called “bank reconciliation”.

For freelancers, AEAT notes that accounting and registration duties depend on the regime or method used to determine net income. AEAT, IRPF 2025 accounting and registration obligations. A professional in direct estimation, in any of its modalities, must keep a record book of income, of expenses, of investment assets and of provisions of funds and disbursements. AEAT, professional activities in direct estimation. From 1 January 2019 those books are mandatory even if, as a professional, you voluntarily keep accounts conforming to the Commercial Code. AEAT, professional activities in direct estimation.

Order HAC/773/2019 regulates how IRPF record books are kept. In simplified direct estimation for business activities, it requires a sales and income record book, a purchases and expenses record book and an investment-assets record book. Order HAC/773/2019. If your commercial business activity is determined under normal direct estimation, AEAT states that you are obliged to keep accounts conforming to the Commercial Code. AEAT, IRPF 2025 accounting and registration obligations.

A commercial company sits in a different register: the Commercial Code, the General Accounting Plan approved by Royal Decree 1514/2007 and, where applicable, the General Accounting Plan for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises under Royal Decree 1515/2007. General Accounting Plan; SME General Accounting Plan. Choose the monthly scope according to whether you are a freelancer with record books or a company under the Commercial Code and the applicable accounting plan; do not copy another business’s list. AEAT, IRPF 2025 accounting and registration obligations.

Out of scope here is local Terrassa or Valencia detail and the full tax quarter. For the quarterly service, read what your accountant should do each quarter. If you already suspect an error in the books or filings, use correcting accounting and tax errors. The Spanish programmatic piece on online accounting advisory with reconciliation goes deeper on statements, card terminals and open items; it does not replace a written engagement.

What usually stays in your software (and why that matters)

In practice the raw material of the month lives in the invoicing program, in banking (or its feed) and in the tray of receipts, settlements and emails with supporting documents. Almost everything the firm can later post comes from there.

Invoicing should identify the date, amount, customer or supplier and the document that supports the income or expense. If you invoice in one system and get paid through another channel, the accounting month needs both threads. A sale “in the software” with no locatable collection, or a collection with no invoice, is a difference someone must explain before the close.

Banking supplies the statement. Importing movements is not reconciling them. In this guide, reconciling means matching each relevant movement to an entry and a supporting document, or writing down why it still does not fit. Article 25 of the Commercial Code requires a chronological trail and orderly accounts; it does not prescribe that bank matching exercise. Commercial Code, Article 25. Treat reconciliation as an internal control, not as a universal legal duty.

The tray (shared folder, email or portal inbox) is where loose PDFs disappear: card-terminal settlements, marketplace fees, loan receipts, payroll if another provider prepares it. Agree a channel and a cut-off date. If you send incomplete paperwork after the agreed day, ask what falls outside this close and what will be reviewed next.

TaxFactory’s tax and accounting advisory describes a flow where you supply documents at your pace and the firm records, reconciles banks and leaves the accounts ready for tax. Use that page to discuss the engagement, not as an automatic feature list. Ask which channels they accept, which exports they need and what drops out if a statement is missing.

The month in four stretches: gather, match, note, close

A practical month sequence is to gather statements and invoices, match movements to entries and supporting documents, note differences, and treat the period as closed only once key balances and open items are identified. That is an organisational proposal, not a statutory checklist. Article 28 of the Commercial Code sets out the journal and the inventories and annual accounts book, and allows totals to be posted for periods not exceeding a quarter if the detail appears in other concordant records. Commercial Code, Article 28. That rule does not turn each step of the sequence into an automatic right against the firm.

Gather what the period needs

Start by asking whether the month’s paperwork is complete. Have the expected sales and purchases arrived? Is there a new account, a different card terminal or a payment platform you did not use before? A bulky folder can still omit an entire line of activity. Ask for a missing-items list and who must obtain each item, instead of treating the number of files sent as proof of completeness.

If you are a freelancer with record books, check that income and expenses for the month have numbered supporting documents or an invoice as required. Order HAC/773/2019 sets out, among other things, the content of the sales and income book and the purchases and expenses book. Order HAC/773/2019. If you are a company, the preparer will also need the movements that feed payroll, social security, depreciation, loans or related-party transactions when those sit inside the engagement. TaxFactory’s tax-accounting service lists that kind of operation in its full-recording description; confirm which items your fee covers. Tax and accounting advisory.

Match bank, entry and document

This is where the misunderstanding usually sits. Plenty of people call having the bank imported “up-to-date accounts”. A clean statement helps, but it does not prove that each entry reflects the right transaction. In a hypothetical online shop, the platform remits takings after fees and refunds. A useful review follows the link between sales, deductions and the bank receipt. A difference is not proof of evasion or an automatic accounting error; ask for an explanation.

Ask for differences to be classified: different date, duplicate, pending document, transfer between own accounts, bundled collection or a transaction that needs different treatment. Without that, the close becomes a “nearly balanced” figure nobody can defend two months later.

Bank reconciliation is a working control. The law does not oblige you to reconcile the statement under that name. What you can require, depending on your case, are orderly records or record books; if you contract the bank control, ask to see how they do it. The Spanish piece on online reconciliation for freelancers goes deeper on statements, card terminals and open items.

Note entries and leave a trail

The journal, where the Commercial Code applies, records day-to-day operations or, within Article 28’s limits, periodic totals if the detail lives in concordant records. Commercial Code, Article 28. In IRPF record books, posting follows Order HAC/773/2019 and the AEAT pages already cited. An entry without support, or support without an entry, needs an explanation either way.

Document the reason for each open difference. It may be a supplier who has not yet sent the invoice, a collection from a prior month or a personal payment mixed into the business account. Ask the preparer to note what has been checked and what still waits for your reply. If a question vanishes when the month closes, it tends to return in the quarter or in a formal notice with less room to manoeuvre.

Close the period without pretending certainty

Closing does not mean everything is perfect. It means the period has a status (reconciled, pending or adjusted), with an owner and a next step. A useful close identifies reviewed bank balances, open items and missing documentation. Treating as final a balance that still depends on a lost PDF only pushes the problem into the following month.

At the end of the financial year, the entrepreneur must prepare the company’s annual accounts, comprising the balance sheet, the profit and loss account, a statement of changes in equity for the year, a cash-flow statement and the notes, subject to the legal exceptions provided. Commercial Code, Article 34. A small company’s monthly close is not that annual act; it is the work that feeds balances and inventories periodically, inside Article 25’s framework. Commercial Code, Article 25.

TaxFactory’s service page talks about periodic monthly or quarterly closes to spot variances before year-end, and includes annual accounts and legalisation of books when that sits in scope. Tax and accounting advisory. Ask which frequency you have contracted and what deliverable you receive at the end of each cycle.

Freelancer and company: two maps, one month

In the office the month looks similar: statements arrive, invoices are chased, differences are discussed. The legal map does not. Mixing both produces impossible engagements (“I want a full General Accounting Plan close but only IRPF record books”) or frustrated expectations (“my firm never gives me a balance sheet” when the fee only covered IRPF registers).

For professional activities in direct estimation, AEAT fixes the four record books already cited. AEAT, professional activities in direct estimation. For business activities, the same general obligations page distinguishes commercial character, normal or simplified modality and, where relevant, objective estimation. AEAT, IRPF 2025 accounting and registration obligations. Two freelancers in the same sector can have different lists.

A company applying the General Accounting Plan or the SME plan works under Royal Decree 1514/2007 or 1515/2007 respectively. General Accounting Plan; SME General Accounting Plan. There the month more often includes balance-sheet reviews, accruals and transactions with shareholders or directors. That does not turn every internal control into a named statutory duty in the Commercial Code.

Entrepreneurs must keep the books, correspondence, documentation and supporting papers relating to the business, properly ordered, for six years from the last entry made in the books, unless general or special provisions provide otherwise. Commercial Code, Article 30. AEAT notes that this six-year period does not match the four-year tax prescription period, and that ceasing activity does not remove the retention duty. AEAT, retention of books. Keeping only the latest spreadsheet export can be insufficient if the ordered trail for the period is missing.

What you should receive when the month ends

For the service proposed here, the month ends with a short, readable handover. Ask for the reconciliation or record-review status, the balances reviewed, the open-item list with owner and date, and what sits outside the close. Put that handover into the scope so “month closed” cannot mean only that someone imported the bank.

You do not need a twenty-page financial report for a small business. You do need to know whether customer or supplier balances include doubtful items, whether unidentified collections remain and whether missing documents will hit the quarter. A screenshot of the invoicing program does not replace that explanation.

If the month feeds tax filings, ask how it will connect to the next deadline. Monthly and quarterly work can share a folder and still fail if nobody translates open differences into forms. The quarterly service guide covers that boundary. The monthly close should not reach the quarter as a black box.

Keep the paperwork where the business can find it. A simple test: locate the month’s statement, the contested invoice and the open-item note without asking anyone to resend the whole archive. Access should protect confidential data and still work when someone is away.

How to decide whether the month is well organised

Start with the written engagement. Identify the activities covered, the documents you must supply, the close frequency and the deliverables. If another provider runs payroll or a different invoicing tool, make clear who connects those data to the records.

Then look at recent evidence. Pick a closed month and ask them to walk you through one sale, one expense and one doubtful bank movement. You do not need to audit every entry; you need to see whether a method exists and whether differences are documented.

Compare that method with your legal form. Choose the monthly scope according to whether you are a freelancer with record books or a company under the Commercial Code and the applicable accounting plan; do not copy another business’s list. AEAT, IRPF 2025 accounting and registration obligations. If the firm only says “upload invoices”, ask which books or statements they produce and who reviews balances.

This guide refers to Spain’s common state tax territory. Businesses or freelancers under foral rules, Canary Islands indirect taxation or special regimes need their own assessment. Do not extrapolate deadlines or books from this page.

Separate internal control from tax obligation. Hiring accounting advisory does not let you transfer your obligations before the Tax Agency by private agreement. General Tax Act, Article 17. You can agree who prepares, who files and who answers a formal notice; you cannot agree that the Administration will ignore your status as the taxpayer.

What this guide leaves out

There is no journal-entry template here, no line-by-line reconciliation tutorial and no full calendar of Modelo 303 or 130. No prices or testimonials either. If you need to fix an error already found, go to the guide on accounting and tax errors. If your question is the quarter, use the quarterly service guide.

We also do not decide whether your particular activity is commercial, professional or mixed. That classification drives books and accounts; it belongs to someone who knows your facts and the applicable regime. This page maps the questions; it does not answer them for your file.

Next step

Gather the current engagement, a recent bank statement and the last monthly handover (if you have one). Mark what lives in your invoicing software, what arrives from the bank and what sits unclassified in the tray. With that you can ask your firm, or assess TaxFactory’s tax and accounting service, for a written description of the month: what they record, what they reconcile, what they close and what deliverable you receive.

If you operate as a freelancer, also review freelancers. If you have a company or are considering growing with a corporate structure, see companies. The useful next step is not stacking more PDFs. It is agreeing a month that you and the firm can actually keep, without pretending that an imported bank feed is already orderly accounting.

Frequently asked questions

Is bank reconciliation required by law?

No. The rules cited in this guide require, depending on the type of business operator, orderly accounts or specific record books; they do not impose a procedure called bank reconciliation. Matching the bank to the books is a useful working control that checks whether movements, entries and documents fit together. If your engagement includes it, ask which accounts they review and how they document differences. Commercial Code, Article 25; AEAT, IRPF 2025 accounting and registration obligations.

How does monthly accounting advisory differ from the tax quarter?

The accounting month organises banks, invoices, entries and the period close. The tax quarter focuses on self-assessments and the filing deadlines that apply to you. They can share documentation, but they are not the same service: a monthly close does not replace checking forms, frequency and exceptions. If you need the obligations calendar, use the linked quarterly guide. What your accountant should do each quarter.

Does a freelancer have the same accounting duties as a company?

No. Duties depend on the regime or method used to determine taxable profit and on whether the activity is commercial in nature. A professional in direct estimation must keep record books of income, expenses, investment assets and provisions of funds and disbursements. A commercial company follows the Commercial Code and, where applicable, the General Accounting Plan or the SME plan. Ask the firm to identify your case before copying another business’s list. AEAT, professional activities in direct estimation; Commercial Code, Article 25.

What should stay in my software and what do I send the firm?

Your software usually holds invoicing, the bank connection and the day-to-day supporting-document inbox. The firm’s role, when the engagement covers it, is to record, reconcile and close the period with a coherent picture of balances and open items. Agree what you export, how often, and what remains pending when a document is missing. An uploaded file is not, by itself, a reviewed record. Tax and accounting advisory.

Does hiring accounting advisory transfer my tax obligations?

No. The elements of a tax obligation cannot be altered by private acts or agreements as against the tax administration. Professional help can organise the work and clarify internal responsibilities, but it does not move your position before the Tax Agency. Put in writing who prepares records, who files and who answers a formal notice. General Tax Act, Article 17.