A Finish Date open months against the day

Start at the oldest month, not the newest

The newest month feels urgent because it is the one you can still remember. The oldest open month is the one the rest stand on. If that month was never tied, every month after it is a story told on top of an untied bank.

We ask you to name the oldest month you know is open. Not knowing yet is still something we can work with. The first hour of the work is finding it, not pretending the pile starts in the fall because the fall is what hurts.

Two open months and seven open months are not the same job

Two open months and a day three weeks out can be a calm project. Seven open months and a day two weeks out is usually a wish. The count tells us whether the hoped-for day can stand. The point of the count is to change the day, or to change the list, before anyone is embarrassed.

A lender's deadline does not change the count. It changes how frank the answer has to be. If the day the lender named cannot hold the months, you deserve that sentence early, while there is still time to ask the lender for a different day or to narrow what current has to mean.

What an open month actually is

A month is open when the bank has not been tied, or the cards have not been tied, or a balance on the books has no statement behind it, or a pile of questions is still unanswered. A month with a feed of new lines and no tie is open, even if someone has been coding every day.

A month can also be open because a clearing bucket still holds items nobody claimed. Those items are not a detail. They are the month, still unfinished. On the named day that bucket is empty or every leftover has a name and a next step.

The count goes on the paper

The engagement lists the months, not a vibe. From this month through that day. If a month in the middle was already tied, it can be marked as done so the work does not repeat it. If it was tied badly, it goes back on the list. Either way the paper shows the truth.

You can read that list to a preparer or a lender without translating it. That is the test. If the list only makes sense to the person who wrote it, it is not a count. It is a private note.