Insurance brokerage month-end close checklist

Why close discipline matters

In a brokerage, the numbers that matter most — what’s in trust, what you owe insurers, what commission you’ve earned, what producers are owed — all move constantly. If they are only reconciled occasionally, small differences compound silently until nothing ties out and year-end becomes a forensic exercise.

A monthly close is the discipline that prevents this. Closing every period catches differences while they are still small and explainable, and it means your financial statements are trustworthy all year, not just after a year-end cleanup.

The monthly close, step by step

A reliable brokerage close covers the same core steps every month:

1. Trust reconciliation. Reconcile the trust bank balance to the trust ledger and to the trust liability — what you owe insurers and clients out of trust. Confirm trust assets cover trust liabilities with no shortfall.
2. Carrier statement matching. Match each insurer’s statement to what the system recorded on the policies, for both agency-bill and direct-bill business, and resolve the differences.
3. Direct-bill commission reconciliation. Compare the commission carriers reported and paid against what the system expected, then correct commission income and receivables.
4. Accruals and adjusting entries. Post accruals, prepaids, and any adjustments so income and expenses land in the right period.
5. General ledger close. Review the trial balance, confirm bank and balance-sheet accounts reconcile, then close the GL period so it can’t be changed unintentionally.
6. Financial package. Produce the period’s financial statements and key brokerage metrics for the owners or controller.

Doing the close in Applied Epic

Most Canadian brokerages run on a broker management system, and the close works best when it happens inside that system rather than alongside it in spreadsheets. In Applied Epic, the accounting module supports the trust ledger, carrier reconciliation, direct-bill commission reconciliation, and the general ledger close, all tied to the same policy and billing data.

The advantage is a single source of truth: when the close runs inside Epic, the trust position, commissions, and premiums payable all reconcile from the same records. The common failure is the opposite — the “real” accounting drifts into spreadsheets while the system falls behind, and the two stop agreeing. (Applied Epic and Applied Systems are trademarks of Applied Systems, Inc.)

Run it on a calendar with a committed turnaround

A close is only as good as its consistency. The firms that stay clean run the close on a fixed calendar — the same steps, completed by the same day each month — with a committed turnaround so the financial package lands on a predictable date. That cadence is what turns year-end into just another close.

Getting your close under control

BrokerLedger runs month-end close for Canadian brokerages inside Applied Epic — trust reconciliation, carrier statement matching, direct-bill commission reconciliation, and the GL close — on a committed monthly turnaround. If your close is slipping or your numbers only get cleaned up at year-end, a discovery call is the fastest way to see what it would take to close every month on time.