BOOKKEEPING RELIABILITY DIAGNOSTIC

How much decision-making weight can your books actually carry?

This score is about the reliability of the accounting records, not whether the business is profitable. It weights five control pillars, applies hard-stop caps to serious failures and tells you how confident the result should be.

3-5 MINUTES

Describe the close you have today.

Use the last fully closed month. If you genuinely do not know an answer, choose "Not sure"; the tool will lower confidence rather than pretend certainty.

1. Completeness & close discipline 20%

Days after month-end to closeUse the date the ledger is genuinely closed, not when a draft P&L appears. Source documents attached / traceable % Suspense / uncategorised items as % of monthly entries Approx. monthly transactions

2. Reconciliations & ledger integrity 30%

Bank / cash / card accounts reconciled % Material balance-sheet accounts substantiated % AR/AP ageing agrees to control accounts Number of legal entities / branches in the books

3. Accounting treatment 20%

Accruals & prepayments maintained Inventory reconciled to accounting records Payroll reconciled to ledger & payments Fixed-asset register maintained Related-party / owner balances supported Material prior-period corrections recently?

4. Compliance traceability 15%

VAT return reconciled back to ledger Tax / statutory filing discipline

5. Management usability 15%

Monthly management output Review / sign-off of reconciliations & journals

Self-assessment only. A high score still needs evidence testing before anyone calls the books audit-ready or error-free.

METHODOLOGY

Why this is not a cosmetic 1-to-100 score.

The formula is deliberately asymmetric: strong answers can lift a score, but a fundamental control failure can cap it.

20%

Completeness

Close speed, document traceability and unresolved / suspense activity.

30%

Reconciliations

Bank/cash reconciliation, balance-sheet substantiation and AR/AP-to-ledger integrity.

20%

Treatment

Recurring accounting mechanics such as accruals, inventory, payroll, fixed assets and related-party schedules.

15%

Compliance

VAT-to-ledger traceability where relevant and evidence that deadlines are controlled.

15%

Usability

Whether management gets a complete monthly view and whether somebody independent reviews the close.

Hard-stop logic: poor bank reconciliation, weak balance-sheet substantiation, excessive suspense, a very late close, unreconciled VAT or material prior-period corrections can cap the overall score. That prevents five easy green answers from hiding one control that can invalidate the numbers.