Monthly close checklist: exporting mileage to Clara in 4 steps
How to close the month for mileage and export to Clara in 30 minutes without reopening the cycle.
Why a monthly close exists
Finance closes a period to make the books defensible.[^rfb-sped] Reopening a month is expensive (every dependent report changes). Mileage is one of the most-reopened categories because field-team submissions trickle in late. The fix is a tight close checklist that catches stragglers before the period locks.
Step 1: T-3 — chase the stragglers
Three business days before close, run the 'pending submissions' report. For each driver with more than two unsubmitted trips in the period:
- Send a calendar-blocking reminder email with the list of dates. - Cc the line manager (escalation pressure). - Set a hard cutoff at T-1 EOD; anything after lands in the next period.
This single ritual cuts post-close stragglers by 70% in the data.
Step 2: T-1 — approve the long tail
The day before close, the approver clears the queue. They:
- Approve the routine entries (>90% of submissions). - Reject with a one-line comment any entry that lacks business purpose. - Park anything that requires legal/compliance review (GDPR/LGPD GPS questions, cross-border trips).
Parked items go into the next period unless they're material; never freeze a close to wait for one parked claim.
Step 3: T+0 — generate the export
On close day, run the Quilometragem → Clara export from the dashboard:
1. Filter: period = last month, status = approved. 2. Click 'Export to Clara CSV'. 3. Download the CSV and open it in the Clara import wizard. 4. Map the columns (the template is pre-aligned: date, employee_id, amount, account_code, project_code). 5. Run the import in dry-run mode first; review the row count and amount totals. 6. Confirm the import.
The whole sequence takes 8–12 minutes for a 200-driver fleet.
Step 4: T+1 — reconcile
The day after close:
- Pull the Clara expense report for the period. - Run the Quilometragem 'Reconciliation' report. - Verify the totals match within a 0.5% tolerance (rounding). - Investigate any variance > 0.5% (usually a manual entry in Clara that bypassed the integration). - Sign off the close in the finance ticketing system.
Common errors
- **Two exports in one period**: a partial export at T-3, a complete one at T+0. The second overwrites or duplicates depending on Clara settings. Always run the export only once per close. - **Missing project codes**: drivers who select 'Other' as project hit the suspense account. Configure required project selection at submission time, not at approval time. - **Mid-month rate change**: if a regulator updates the per-km rate mid-month, generate two batches (pre-change and post-change) with different account lines, not one blended line.
When to skip Clara
If the fleet is < 5 drivers, the manual workflow in Clara is faster than the integration. If the fleet is multinational with multiple Clara accounts, run one export per Clara entity, not one consolidated export.
What to do this close
1. Schedule the T-3, T-1, T+0, T+1 calendar entries today for the next 6 months. 2. Identify the approver and the reconciler — different people, ideally. 3. Run the dry-run import on T+0 to catch column mismatches early. 4. Lock the period in Quilometragem after T+1 reconciliation; any post-lock change must go through the next period as a back-dated entry with audit trail.