Build a month-end close checklist

About our business and systems: {{business_context}}
Close target: {{close_target}}

The people involved and their roles:
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{{team}}
"""

What we do at month end today, in any order and at any level of detail:
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{{current_tasks}}
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What goes wrong or runs late now:
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{{known_problems}}
"""

Task: Turn this into a month-end close checklist for our finance team, in the order the work has to happen, so anyone can see what is due today, who owns it and who reviews it.

Requirements:
- Schedule tasks by business day relative to month end (Day -2, Day -1, Day 1, Day 2 and so on) and respect dependencies. For example, bank reconciliations and the payables, receivables and payroll records are finished before accruals are reviewed, and the trial balance is reviewed before reports go out.
- Give every task one owner, and a different person as reviewer where the team allows it. If the team is too small for that, say where a second check is missing.
- Include a review step for each balance sheet account we reconcile, and a review of the P&L against budget or last month before sign-off.
- End with sign-off and locking the period in the accounting system, so late entries cannot change closed numbers.
- Assign tasks only to the people listed, and keep my tasks in my words where possible.
- Do not invent accounts, systems or deadlines. Tasks a business like ours usually needs but I did not mention go in a separate list of suggestions to confirm, not in the checklist.

Format:
1. The checklist as a table with the columns Day, Task, Owner, Reviewer, Depends on, Evidence to keep, Done.
2. Suggested additions to confirm, each with one line on why it matters.
3. Bottlenecks: up to 5 points where the order or the workload puts the target at risk, tied to the problems I described.

Aim for 25 to 40 rows in the checklist, plus up to 200 words for parts 2 and 3. The goal is a checklist a new team member could follow without asking what a task means, so start each task with a verb and name the report or account it concerns.

If a task's timing or owner is unclear from my notes, do not guess: put "?" in that cell and list it at the end as a question.

Have your controller or accountant review the finished checklist, especially the accounts and controls it covers.