close-month

Run the month-end chain. Close, then forecast off the closed books, then publish. The ordering is the product.

Parse arguments:

• --month (default: previous calendar month) — YYYY-MM
• --save-to (default files) — files (Drive / OneDrive), desktop, or both

A ledger is required — MYOB, NetSuite, QuickBooks, Xero, or Zoho Books, whichever is connected; they are peers (../../shared/connector-neutrality.md). If none is reachable, stop and say so. Reconciliation without a ledger is not a close. Offer the CSV path from month-end-prep rather than producing a partial packet. If two ledgers are connected, ask which holds the books being closed and name it in the packet.

Step 1 — Close and reconcile (month-end-prep)

Run month-end-prep for the target month, start to finish.

• In: the target month.
• Out: the reconciliation table, the flagged items (uncategorized, suspicious duplicates, missing receipts), the P&L narrative, and the close packet XLSX plus one-page PDF.
• Gate: month-end-prep's own Step 6 sign-off holds. The owner triages every flagged item — or explicitly skips it — before anything downstream runs.

This step owns the numbers. Nothing later in the chain recategorizes a transaction or restates revenue.

The hard gate before Step 2