The answer
Fourteen checks across four areas: certification and claims, e-Invoice compliance, collections and receipts, and reversals. The order matters, because a claim raised against a certificate nobody verified will fail twice, once at billing and again at audit.
Why a developer's close is not a normal close
A general month-end close reconciles what happened. A developer's close also has to confirm that what should have happened, did.
Billing triggers on certification, not on the calendar. So a certificate that arrived and was never actioned does not appear as an error anywhere. It appears as revenue that was never billed, and nobody notices until the following stage.
That is the structural difference, and it is why a generic accounting checklist misses the two most expensive items on this list.
The 14 point close
Certification and claims
- Every architect certificate received this month is logged with its receipt date.
- Every certificate received has a corresponding claim raised, or a documented reason it has not.
- Claims raised match the certified stage and the current schedule of payment.
- Any unit with a revised price or changed unit has a revised schedule reflected in billing.
e-Invoice compliance
- Every transaction above RM10,000 has been issued as an individual e-Invoice.
- No high value transaction has been included in a consolidated submission.
- All e-Invoices for the period are validated and the validation references are retrievable.
- Credit notes and debit notes issued this month are matched to the original invoice.
Collections and receipts
- Every receipt is matched to a specific invoice, not to a customer balance.
- Ageing reviewed by purchaser, and separately by solicitor, banker and financier.
- Loan drawdown status reconciled against expected drawdowns for certified stages.
- Units pending loan approval identified and counted, with the duration of each.
Reversals and exceptions
- Rebates and discounts granted this month reconciled between what sales agreed and what finance recorded.
- Cancellations and terminations traced through to completion, with any unit still locked pending reversal flagged by name.
The two most commonly missed
| Item | Why it gets missed | What it costs |
|---|---|---|
| Certificate received, no claim raised | It is an absence, and absences do not appear on reports | Revenue not billed and cash not collected, undetected until the next stage |
| Unit locked pending reversal | Not in available stock, not in sold stock, so not in any report | Holding cost with no possibility of a sale |
Both are absences rather than errors. That is precisely why a normal close does not catch them, and why they belong on a property-specific checklist.
