The Monthly Books Review is a one-click Monthly Checkup inside ExpenseBot. It scans your setup, income, expenses, receipts, reconciliation, invoices, reports, and recurring-charge findings, then returns a short prioritized to-do list. Each item has evidence and one direct action.
Where to find it
Settings → Priority card #1, or My Reports → Insights. Run it anytime; one review per calendar month, refreshable every 24 hours.
What it checks
- Finish automation setup — Gmail not connected, nightly scan off, or spreadsheet not ready.
- Complete important profile settings — add a missing home country or currency so conversions, reports, and location-specific tools use the right context. Home city is suggested only when travel activity makes it useful.
- Expenses but no income — no income is recorded, so a profit figure can't be calculated (the assistant's version of this review shows net profit as unavailable); use the Add income action to record it with +Add Income, or confirm there was none.
- Possibly missing receipts — card transactions without a matching receipt (reconciliation gaps). Works best when you've uploaded a card or bank CSV.
- Client invoices needing attention — review overdue or long-open invoices and link payments when they arrive.
- Ready for a P&L — income and expenses both present; open your Profit & Loss page to see net profit. It opens on year to date, and completed months, quarters and last year are in its period menu.
- Subscription findings — review possible price increases, duplicates, or converted trials. Ordinary recurring charges alone do not create a checkup item.
- Meaningful spending changes — review category spending that is at least twice its established baseline and at least $75 higher, or a user-set spending ceiling that was exceeded.
- Creator/platform income — genuine creator-platform activity detected; turn on creator features.
Who it works for
Freelancers, small business owners, content creators, and accountants managing client accounts. When an accountant opens a client account, the review shows the client's data — not the accountant's own.
Close readiness through MCP
An owner or an accepted accountant can ask an MCP-compatible assistant whether one authorized workspace is ready for month-end. The get_monthly_books_review result includes an evidence-backed closeReadiness status:
- ready — every required supported check is available and clear;
- needs action — ExpenseBot found supported work to resolve;
- blocked — a named prerequisite prevents a trustworthy result; or
- unknown — evidence is unavailable, stale, unsupported, or ambiguous.
An accepted accountant can also use list_client_close_readiness for a privacy-safe page summary of client statuses and affected-client categories. It does not return client names, financial amounts, receipt details, or a verified whole-portfolio total. Use the returned Client Reports link to select the client and resolve the underlying work in ExpenseBot.
Close readiness is a pre-close evidence check. ExpenseBot does not close the books, certify tax or accounting completeness, or replace an accountant's judgement. Unknown evidence never becomes a ready month.
Important notes
- The in-app Monthly Checkup is on-demand. MCP can read the current evidence-backed readiness state when asked.
- Based on your actual spreadsheet totals and settings, not averages or generic AI output.
- Quiet by design: it does not show routine recurring charges, generic tag suggestions, or optional setup prompts without a clear benefit.
- Does not tell you how much it is safe to pay yourself. ExpenseBot does not know your complete cash position, future obligations, or entity-specific salary and dividend rules.
- Does not provide tax or financial advice.
- Your data stays in your Google Drive.
See https://www.expensebot.ai/monthly-books-review for the full feature page.