Closing Book
When an accounting or reporting team " closes the books " they generate an archive of material that supports the financial statement which is generated at the end of a month, or end of a quarter, or end of a fiscal year. This is sometimes referred to as a " closing book " or " closing binder ". When I began as an auditor for Price Waterhouse back in 1982, computers existed but no one really used them in the accounting process quite yet. The "closing book" for the clients we audited at that time was usually a drawer in a file cabinet or desk that had a bunch of file folders in them. Each file folder was for a specific type of supporting item like the trial balance printout from the accounting system, the bank reconciliation(s), trade accounts receivables trial balance, physical inventories that were taken, statements received from the bank that told you how much was still do on a loan, and so forth. Eventually, the closing book was created main...