A year of moving prices makes a routine close harder in specific, predictable places. Knowing where saves most of the difficulty.
Inventory valuation is the first problem
When purchase prices moved repeatedly, the cost assigned to stock depends heavily on the method applied and whether it was applied consistently. Check that the method is the one your policy states, and that it was used throughout rather than drifting by product or by person.
Then test for stock held above what it will realise. Items bought at peak prices that now sell for less need writing down, and this is the adjustment most often missed because it requires comparing cost to current selling price line by line.
Provisions need revisiting, not rolling forward
Receivables provisions calculated on historical experience will understate the position if customers have come under pressure during the year. Look at actual ageing and actual payment behaviour now, rather than applying last year’s percentage.
The same applies to any onerous contract — an agreement committing you to supply below current cost may require a provision, and it will not surface unless someone looks for it.
Make the comparatives explainable
Users of the accounts will compare this year with last and see movements driven by price rather than volume. If you cannot separate the two, the accounts will be misread.
Where possible, present or at least internally calculate volume and price effects separately. It changes the conversation with a bank or a shareholder entirely.
Document the judgements as you make them
Every one of the above involves judgement: which method, which write-down, which provision. Record the basis and the data at the time you decide.
Judgements reconstructed months later, for an auditor, from people who have since moved on, are where a close becomes genuinely painful.