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Streamline your finance process with month end close automation. Learn key benefits, top tools, and actionable steps to simplify your monthly close.
Your finance team is packed with smart, analytical minds, yet they spend the last week of every month performing tedious, repetitive tasks. Manually matching transactions and ticking and tying numbers in spreadsheets isn't just a poor use of their talent—it's a direct path to burnout and a bottleneck for the entire business. The real value of your finance function isn't in data entry; it's in strategic analysis and forward-looking guidance. Month end close automation is the key to unlocking that potential. It handles the grunt work, freeing your team from the cycle of manual reconciliation so they can focus on what they do best: interpreting the numbers and helping to guide the business forward.
Month-end close automation is the use of technology to handle the repetitive, time-consuming tasks involved in closing your books. Think of it as giving your finance team a powerful assistant that takes care of the grunt work—like matching transactions, reconciling accounts, and pulling data from different systems. This allows your team to focus on what really matters: analyzing the numbers and guiding the business forward with clear, strategic insights.
Instead of getting bogged down in spreadsheets and manual checklists, automation creates a smooth, predictable workflow. It connects your various financial tools, from your ERP to your CRM, to ensure data flows seamlessly and accurately. This shift isn't just about saving time; it's about building a more resilient and strategic finance function. By automating the close, you're not just speeding up a monthly process; you're creating a foundation for real-time financial insights and more confident decision-making across the entire organization. It turns a historically stressful period into a streamlined, value-adding activity that provides a clear picture of your company's financial health much faster than ever before.
If you've ever spent the last week of the month buried in spreadsheets, you know the pain of a manual close. This traditional approach often involves a series of manual accounting processes happening "outside of the system," like ticking and tying numbers, manually creating journal entries, and working through paper checklists. It’s a process that’s not only slow but also incredibly prone to human error. A single misplaced decimal or copy-paste mistake can throw everything off, leading to hours of frustrating detective work. This constant pressure to meet deadlines while juggling countless manual steps often leads to burnout and makes it nearly impossible to find time for strategic analysis.
Automation completely changes the dynamic of the month-end close. By implementing software that handles the heavy lifting, you can transform the close from a dreaded chore into an efficient, predictable process. Automation tools can instantly match thousands of transactions, reconcile accounts in real-time, and automatically generate journal entries based on predefined rules. This frees your team from the tedious cycle of manual data entry and validation. Instead of spending their time chasing down numbers, they can focus on higher-value activities like variance analysis, financial planning, and providing strategic insights that help the business grow.
The advantages of an automated close extend far beyond just saving time. First and foremost, it dramatically improves accuracy. By removing manual data handling, you significantly reduce the risk of errors that can lead to costly restatements and audit issues. This leads to a faster, more reliable close, giving you access to financial reports sooner. With real-time data at your fingertips, you can make more informed strategic decisions. Plus, a smoother process means less stress and overtime for your finance team, improving morale and allowing them to operate as true strategic partners to the business.
The month-end close can feel like a race against the clock, filled with tedious tasks and the constant pressure to be perfect. If your team is buried in spreadsheets, manually reconciling accounts, and chasing down data from different departments, you know the drill. These manual processes don't just slow you down; they open the door to errors and burnout. But what if you could change that? Automation isn't about replacing your team—it's about empowering them. By handing over the repetitive, low-value tasks to software, you can address the root causes of your month-end headaches and transform your close into a smooth, strategic process.
Let's be honest: manually ticking and tying transactions or keying in journal entries is not only tedious, it's a recipe for mistakes. When your team is working "outside of the system" in endless spreadsheets, the risk of human error skyrockets. A single misplaced decimal or transposed number can throw off your entire financial statement, leading to hours of frustrating detective work. Automation takes this risk off the table. By connecting your data sources and automating reconciliations, you create a system that is consistent and reliable. This ensures your numbers are accurate from the start, eliminating the need for last-minute corrections and giving you confidence in your financial data. It's a simple way to improve data integrity and reduce stress.
Is your team spending more time hunting for documents than analyzing data? When financial records are scattered across different systems, emails, and spreadsheets, the month-end close becomes a chaotic scavenger hunt. This disorganization makes it nearly impossible to get a clear picture of your financial health. Automation brings order to the chaos by creating a centralized hub for all your financial data. By implementing tools that offer seamless integrations with your existing software, you can establish a single source of truth. This means no more version control issues or missing files. Instead, you get streamlined documentation and a clear, organized view of your finances, making every close smoother than the last.
Your finance team is full of smart, capable people—so why are they spending their days on repetitive data entry? Automating these manual processes drastically cuts down the time spent on core closing activities. Think of all the hours that go into matching transactions and preparing reports. Automation handles that, freeing your team to focus on what really matters: strategic analysis, financial planning, and providing insights that drive the business forward. It’s not just about closing the books faster; it’s about transforming the finance function from a reactive reporting center into a proactive, strategic partner. You can reclaim your team's time and create a more fulfilling, less stressful work environment.
Audit season doesn't have to be a source of anxiety. A manual closing process often lacks the clear documentation and controls that auditors need to see, increasing your risk of errors and compliance issues. Automation helps you build a rock-solid, audit-ready financial process from the ground up. By standardizing workflows and creating a detailed digital audit trail for every transaction and reconciliation, you can easily demonstrate control and accuracy. This makes it simple to answer auditor questions and provide supporting documentation on demand. With automated systems ensuring you meet standards like ASC 606 compliance, you can face any audit with confidence, knowing your books are clean and defensible.
Making critical business decisions based on last month's data is like driving while looking in the rearview mirror. Without real-time access to financial information, you're always a step behind, unable to monitor progress or spot issues as they happen. Automation changes this by giving you an up-to-the-minute view of your company's performance. Instead of waiting for the books to close, you can access dynamic dashboards and reports anytime. This continuous visibility allows you to track key metrics, identify trends, and make proactive decisions with confidence. When you can see your financial data in real time, you're better equipped to guide your business toward its goals.
Choosing the right software is about finding a partner that can grow with your business and simplify your financial operations. When you start comparing options, you'll notice a lot of different features and buzzwords. To cut through the noise, focus on tools that offer tangible benefits and solve the specific challenges your team faces every month. The goal is to find a platform that doesn't just speed up the close but makes it more accurate and less stressful. Look for a solution that automates the tedious work, provides clear visibility into your financials, and works well with the systems you already use. A great tool should feel like an extension of your team, giving you the confidence to close the books quickly and make smarter business decisions.
Think of all the time your team spends manually matching transactions, especially when dealing with partial payments, refunds, or multiple data sources. It’s often a painstaking process of sorting through spreadsheets and using VLOOKUPs. Automated transaction matching does this heavy lifting for you. Using smart technology, the software can instantly match thousands of transactions from different systems, flagging any exceptions for your review. This not only saves a massive amount of time but also dramatically reduces the risk of human error. It’s one of the most impactful features for any team looking to move away from manual reconciliation and toward a more efficient close.
Why wait until the end of the month to find out where your accounts stand? Continuous reconciliation shifts the process from a once-a-month fire drill to an ongoing, daily activity. The software works in the background, constantly checking and balancing your accounts. This means your financial data is always up-to-date, giving you a real-time view of your business's health. Instead of spending the first week of a new month looking backward, your team can address discrepancies as they happen. This proactive approach can save days of work each month and ensures that decision-makers are always working with the most current and accurate information available.
A chaotic month-end close is often the result of a disorganized workflow. Smart workflow management brings order to the process by creating a centralized, automated checklist for your entire team. You can assign tasks, set deadlines, and track progress in one place, ensuring everyone knows what they need to do and when. This feature establishes clear controls and streamlines communication, so nothing falls through the cracks. It helps you standardize your close process, which is essential for reducing errors, passing audits, and making the entire operation run more smoothly. It’s about creating a repeatable, predictable system you can rely on every single month.
Audits can be incredibly stressful, especially if you have to dig through emails and spreadsheets to justify every number. A strong month-end close software creates a clear audit trail automatically. Every action, adjustment, and approval is logged with a timestamp and user information, creating a complete, unchangeable record of your financial activities. This makes it simple to answer auditor questions and prove compliance with regulations like SOX. This built-in documentation provides a layer of security and control, giving you confidence in the integrity of your financial data and making audit preparation a much simpler task.
Your month-end close software doesn't exist in a vacuum. It needs to communicate with all the other tools you rely on, like your ERP, CRM, and payment processors. Look for a solution with robust and seamless integrations that can pull data from all your disparate sources into one centralized place. This eliminates the need for manual data exports and imports, which are both time-consuming and prone to error. A well-integrated system ensures that your financial data is consistent and accurate across the board, providing a single source of truth for your entire organization and a foundation for reliable reporting.
Once the books are closed, the real work begins: understanding what the numbers mean for your business. A real-time analytics dashboard gives you an immediate, visual representation of your financial performance. Instead of waiting for static reports, you can track key performance indicators (KPIs) as they happen, drill down into specific trends, and get the insights you need for strategic financial planning. This feature turns your financial data from a historical record into a forward-looking tool. It empowers your team to spot opportunities, identify potential issues early, and provide valuable strategic guidance to the rest of the business.
Once you’ve decided to automate your month-end close, the next step is choosing the right software. The market is full of great options, and the best one for you really depends on your company’s size, industry, complexity, and existing tech stack. Some tools are comprehensive, all-in-one platforms, while others are specialized solutions designed to solve a specific problem, like revenue recognition or account reconciliation.
As you explore these options, think about the biggest bottlenecks in your current process. Are you spending too much time on manual data entry? Is transaction matching the main culprit? Or is a lack of visibility holding you back? Answering these questions will help you zero in on the platform with the features you need most. Below is a look at some of the leading month-end close automation tools to help you start your search.
HubiFi is designed for high-volume businesses that need to get their data in order, especially when it comes to revenue recognition. If you're dealing with complex ASC 606 compliance or pulling information from multiple systems like Stripe, Salesforce, and your ERP, this is where it shines. HubiFi focuses on integrating these disparate data sources to create a single source of truth. This not only automates tedious reconciliation tasks but also provides the real-time analytics you need to make strategic decisions. By incorporating key performance indicators (KPIs) around compliance and audit processes, it helps you maintain accountability and stay audit-ready. You can schedule a demo to see how it can unify your financial data.
BlackLine is a well-known leader in the financial close automation space. It offers a comprehensive suite of cloud-based tools that handle everything from account reconciliations and transaction matching to task management and journal entry automation. The platform is built to help finance teams standardize their processes, which is a huge step in reducing risk and ensuring consistency. By automating data entry and providing clear documentation for every step of the close, BlackLine helps you move faster while strengthening your internal controls. It’s a robust solution for mid-sized to large enterprises looking to manage their entire close process in one place.
Built by accountants for accountants, FloQast is known for its user-friendly approach to close management. Instead of replacing your existing systems, it works with them, integrating directly with your ERP and using familiar tools like Excel to streamline your workflow. FloQast excels at providing visibility into the close process, using centralized checklists so everyone on the team knows exactly what they need to do and when. This focus on collaboration and organization helps teams work together more efficiently. If your main goal is to better manage your team’s operations and track performance against deadlines, FloQast is a strong contender.
Trintech offers a portfolio of solutions aimed at automating the entire record-to-report (R2R) lifecycle. Its platform, Adra, is particularly popular with mid-market companies for streamlining balance sheet reconciliations and closing tasks. For larger enterprises, Cadency provides a more extensive set of capabilities for managing compliance and governance. Trintech is great at handling high volumes of transactions, automating the matching process to quickly identify and resolve discrepancies. By establishing clear controls and reducing the risk of audit errors, it helps ensure the integrity of your financial data from transaction to disclosure.
Oracle NetSuite isn't just a month-end close tool; it's a complete cloud ERP system that runs your entire business, from accounting and inventory to CRM and e-commerce. For businesses already using NetSuite or those looking for an all-in-one solution, its financial management capabilities are powerful. It automates core accounting functions and provides real-time visibility into financial performance. Because everything is in one system, you can eliminate the data silos that often slow down the close. It’s an ideal choice for growing companies that want a single, scalable platform to manage their operations and financials together.
Sage Intacct is another top-tier cloud financial management platform with strong features for automating the month-end close. It’s particularly well-regarded for its multi-entity and multi-currency consolidation capabilities, making it a great fit for businesses with complex organizational structures. Sage Intacct helps you move toward a continuous close by automating processes like bank reconciliations, revenue recognition, and project accounting throughout the month. This means that by the time the end of the month arrives, much of the work is already done. Its focus on core accounting and powerful reporting makes it a favorite among finance professionals.
While Workday Adaptive Planning is primarily known as a financial planning and analysis (FP&A) tool, it plays a valuable role in the month-end process. After the books are closed, you need to understand what the numbers mean, and that's where this platform comes in. By integrating with your ERP and accounting systems, it automates the creation of financial reports, dashboards, and forecasts. This allows your team to spend less time pulling data and more time on strategic analysis. If your post-close reporting process is a major pain point, Workday can help you turn financial data into actionable insights.
Cube offers a unique approach that appeals to finance teams who love the flexibility of their spreadsheets. It acts as a bridge, connecting your existing Excel and Google Sheets models directly to your source systems, like your ERP or general ledger. This allows you to automate the tedious and error-prone process of data collection and consolidation without forcing you to abandon your trusted spreadsheets. By embracing automation this way, Cube helps transform the month-end close from a manual, time-consuming task into a more streamlined and strategic process. It’s a great option for teams that want automation without a massive change in their workflow.
Switching to an automated system is a big step, but it doesn't have to be a headache. With a clear plan, you can make the transition smooth and set your team up for success from day one. Think of it less as a massive overhaul and more as a series of manageable steps that lead to a much more efficient and less stressful month-end. The key is to be thoughtful and methodical. By breaking down the implementation into distinct phases—from standardizing your current methods to training your team and testing the new system—you can ensure the software works for you, not the other way around. Let's walk through the essential steps to get your new automation software up and running effectively.
Before you can automate anything, you need to know exactly what you’re automating. Trying to apply software to a chaotic or inconsistent process will only automate the chaos. Start by documenting your current month-end close from start to finish. Create a detailed checklist that outlines every task, who is responsible, and the deadlines for each. As experts at Centric Consulting note, "Standardized and documented process and control narratives are best practices for all business cycles." This step forces you to identify bottlenecks, redundancies, and inefficiencies that you can clean up before you even introduce a new tool. A clear, standardized workflow is the foundation for a successful automation implementation.
Your new automation software needs clean, accurate data to do its job. This is where data migration comes in. You’ll need a solid plan for moving your financial information from your old systems (like spreadsheets and legacy software) into the new platform. This process typically involves identifying the essential data, scrubbing it for errors or duplicates, and mapping it to the fields in the new software. A well-planned migration ensures that your centralized documentation and real-time analytics are reliable from the get-go. Rushing this step can lead to major headaches down the road, so take the time to get it right and ensure a clean slate for your new, streamlined operations.
A new tool is only effective if your team knows how to use it—and wants to. Proper training is non-negotiable. Go beyond a single software demo and provide comprehensive, hands-on training sessions that show your team how the new system will make their jobs easier. Frame the change as a positive one. As the team at Redwood puts it, automation is about "reclaiming our time, enhancing accuracy and creating a more streamlined and less stressful month-end close." Appoint a few tech-savvy team members as internal "champions" who can provide peer support. When your team feels confident and supported, they're more likely to embrace the new software and help you achieve your efficiency goals.
Implementing new software is as much about people as it is about technology. Effective change management is crucial for getting your team on board. Be transparent from the beginning. Clearly communicate why you're making the change, what the benefits are for both the company and individual team members, and what the implementation timeline looks like. Listen to their concerns and address them openly. By implementing effective strategies, you can reduce stress on your accounting team and ensure a smoother transition for everyone involved. A supportive approach helps build trust and encourages a positive attitude toward the new process, making the entire project more successful.
Before you fully cut over to your new system, you need to be sure it works as expected. The best way to do this is to run the new software in parallel with your old manual process for at least one month-end cycle. This allows you to compare the results side-by-side and catch any discrepancies or configuration issues before they become real problems. It’s also the perfect time to start tracking key performance indicators (KPIs). As Trintech advises, tracking financial close KPIs helps you "better understand their F&A team’s operations and performance." This testing phase validates the software's accuracy and builds your team's confidence that the new tool is reliable and ready to go.
Switching to an automated month-end close process feels like a win, but how do you prove it? To justify the investment and understand its true value, you need to track the right metrics. Measuring the impact isn't just about seeing numbers go down; it's about understanding how automation strengthens your financial operations from the ground up. By establishing a baseline before you implement a new system, you can clearly see the improvements and make a solid case for future investments in your tech stack.
Think of it like a before-and-after snapshot of your finance department's health. Before automation, you might be dealing with long hours, a high risk of errors, and a stressed-out team. After, you should see a streamlined, accurate, and more strategic operation. The key is to focus on a handful of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that tell this story. Tracking these metrics will show you exactly how automation is saving time, reducing errors, and freeing up your team to focus on what really matters: guiding the business forward. We'll look at the most important KPIs to monitor.
How many days does it take your team to close the books each month? This is your close cycle time, and it’s one of the most direct indicators of your team's efficiency. A long cycle means your leadership team is waiting on critical financial data to make timely decisions. Automation drastically shortens this window by handling repetitive tasks like data entry and reconciliation in a fraction of the time. By tracking your close cycle time before and after implementing automation, you’ll have a clear, quantifiable measure of improvement. A shorter close doesn't just mean you're faster; it means your entire business can operate with more agility.
Closing the books is one thing, but getting the final reports into the hands of stakeholders is another. This metric measures the lag time between the end of the close and when decision-makers actually receive financial statements. Manual report preparation can be slow and prone to formatting errors, creating a bottleneck even after the core accounting work is done. Automation can generate and distribute these reports almost instantly once the close is complete. Reducing the days to deliver reports ensures that your leadership team is always working with the most current information, which is essential for sound strategic planning.
Think of adjusting journal entries as course corrections. While some are a normal part of the accounting cycle, a high number of them often points to issues in your initial data collection or transaction processing. Each adjustment requires time to investigate, document, and approve, which slows down the close. Automation helps by ensuring data is captured accurately from the start and by flagging inconsistencies in real time. A significant drop in the number of adjusting entries is a strong sign that your automated system is improving the overall quality and integrity of your financial data before the close even begins.
Even small errors in financial reports can have big consequences, eroding stakeholder trust and leading to poor business decisions. Accuracy is paramount, but manual processes make it easy for mistakes to slip through the cracks. Automation minimizes the risk of human error by standardizing workflows and validating data automatically. When you implement an automated solution, you should see a marked improvement in reporting accuracy. This means fewer revisions, less time spent hunting for errors, and greater confidence in the numbers you present to your board, investors, and leadership team. This reliability is one of the most valuable benefits of a well-implemented system.
The financial return on automation is often a primary concern. Cost savings come from several areas. First, you reduce the staff hours spent on manual, repetitive tasks, which can lower overtime costs and prevent burnout. Second, improved accuracy and compliance reduce the risk of expensive fines or audit adjustments. Finally, by automating the close, you free up your talented finance professionals to focus on high-value strategic analysis rather than data entry. When you look at the pricing for automation software, consider it an investment that pays for itself through increased efficiency and reduced operational risk.
Automation isn't about replacing your team; it's about empowering them. When you remove the tedious, manual work from their plates, they have more time and mental energy for strategic initiatives that drive business growth. You can measure this by tracking how your team's time is allocated before and after automation. You'll likely see a shift from hours spent on data reconciliation to time spent on financial planning and analysis. This not only makes your finance department more effective but also improves job satisfaction and helps you retain top talent. A more productive, strategic team is a clear sign that your automation efforts are succeeding.
Implementing automation isn't a one-and-done project; it's the beginning of a strategic shift in how your finance team operates. A successful transition requires a long-term vision that goes beyond simply installing new software. Think of it as building a new foundation for your financial operations—one that’s designed to be strong, flexible, and ready for growth. This means looking past the immediate goal of a faster month-end close and considering how automation will evolve with your business. A solid long-term strategy involves setting clear goals, choosing technology that aligns with those goals, and creating a framework for continuous improvement.
It’s about turning a chaotic, manual process into a predictable, efficient system that delivers value month after month. By planning ahead, you ensure that your investment in automation pays dividends for years to come, helping your team move from reactive problem-solving to proactive, strategic analysis. This approach transforms the close from a dreaded deadline into a source of reliable, real-time insight that can guide better business decisions. The goal is to create a system that not only saves time today but also scales with you tomorrow, providing a competitive advantage through financial agility and accuracy.
Before you can build a successful automation strategy, you need to know what success looks like for your team. Setting clear, measurable objectives is the first and most critical step. What specific pain points are you trying to solve? Are you aiming to reduce the close cycle from ten days to three? Do you want to cut down on the number of manual journal entries your team has to make? Defining these goals gives you a clear target to aim for and a benchmark to measure against. Key performance indicators (KPIs) like close cycle time, reporting accuracy, and the number of adjusting entries are great places to start. These objectives will guide every decision you make, from selecting software to training your team.
With your objectives in hand, you can start evaluating the right tools for the job. The best software for your company is the one that directly addresses your specific goals. Look for a solution that doesn't just automate tasks but also mitigates risk by standardizing workflows and creating clear audit trails. Investing in the right financial close software provides a central hub for documentation and automates tedious data entry, freeing your team for higher-value work. Pay close attention to integration capabilities, as the tool needs to connect seamlessly with your existing accounting software, ERP, and CRM. This ensures data flows smoothly across your entire tech stack, preventing the creation of new data silos.
Automation thrives on consistency. If your month-end close process is different every time, a software solution will struggle to perform effectively. Before you implement any new tool, take the time to standardize and document your existing workflows. Map out every step, from initial data collection to final report generation. This exercise helps you identify bottlenecks, eliminate redundant tasks, and create a clear, repeatable process. Having standardized process narratives is a best practice for any business cycle, and it’s absolutely essential for a smooth automation rollout. This groundwork ensures the technology can be configured correctly and operate as efficiently as possible from day one.
Once your automated system is up and running, how will you know if it's actually working? This is where performance metrics come in. The objectives you set at the beginning of this journey now become the KPIs you track over time. Regularly monitor metrics like close cycle time, the number of errors, and the time spent on manual reconciliations. You should also consider incorporating KPIs around compliance and audit readiness to ensure quality and accountability. Tracking these metrics provides concrete evidence of your ROI and helps you identify areas for further improvement. This data-driven approach allows you to fine-tune your strategy and prove the value of automation to key stakeholders.
Your business isn't static, and your automation strategy shouldn't be either. A long-term approach requires ongoing maintenance and optimization to keep your system running efficiently. Schedule regular check-ins to review your processes, gather feedback from your team, and assess whether your tools are still meeting your needs. As your company grows, you may add new revenue streams or enter new markets, which will require adjustments to your close process. By embracing automation as an evolving system, your finance team can permanently transform the month-end close from a stressful, burdensome task into a streamlined, value-adding process that supports strategic growth.
Adopting new technology can feel like a big step, and it’s natural to have questions. When it comes to month-end close automation, a few common misconceptions often come up. Let’s clear the air and look at the reality behind these myths so you can make an informed decision for your business.
While there's an upfront investment in any software, the cost of not automating is often much higher. Think about the hours your team spends on manual data entry, the financial impact of a single human error, or the risk of non-compliance. Automation directly reduces these costs. Investing in financial close software helps mitigate financial risks by standardizing your process and catching errors before they become problems. When you compare the software's cost to the savings in time, accuracy, and audit-readiness, the return on investment becomes clear. You can often find flexible pricing information to fit different business sizes and budgets.
This is one of the most persistent myths, but the goal of automation isn’t to replace people—it’s to empower them. Your finance team has valuable skills that are wasted on repetitive, low-impact tasks like ticking and tying numbers. Automation takes over the tedious work, which reclaims your team’s time for what really matters: strategic analysis, financial planning, and providing insights that drive the business forward. By handling the grunt work, automation lets your team operate at a higher level, making their roles more strategic and fulfilling, not obsolete. You can find more insights on our blog about optimizing your financial operations.
If you think implementation is complex, consider the hidden complexity of your current manual process. Manual closes often rely on institutional knowledge, disjointed spreadsheets, and processes that are difficult to track. Without real-time access to financial data, teams struggle to monitor the progress of the close. Modern automation platforms are designed to be user-friendly, with guided onboarding and dedicated support to ensure a smooth transition. A good partner will work with you to map out your processes and configure the software to your needs. You can schedule a demo to see firsthand how straightforward the system is to use.
The opposite is actually true: manual processes are what fail to scale. As your transaction volume grows, a manual month-end close quickly becomes a significant bottleneck, demanding more time and people just to keep up. This approach is unsustainable and prone to error. Automation is built for growth. It can process thousands or even millions of transactions without breaking a sweat, ensuring your close stays efficient and accurate as your business expands. A scalable solution will also offer seamless integrations with your other systems, like your ERP and CRM, creating a connected financial ecosystem that grows with you.
Relying on spreadsheets emailed back and forth is far less secure than using a centralized automation platform. Automation actually enhances your financial security in several key ways. It creates a clear, unchangeable audit trail that documents every action, from data entry to final approval. You can establish role-based permissions to ensure team members only access the information they need. By standardizing your workflows, you enforce internal controls and reduce the risk of fraud or unauthorized changes. Centralizing your financial data in a secure, encrypted system is a major step up from managing sensitive information in disparate files.
Is automation only for large companies, or can small businesses benefit too? Not at all. While large enterprises have complex needs, automation is incredibly valuable for businesses of any size. If your team is spending hours manually reconciling accounts or getting bogged down in spreadsheets, you're losing time that could be spent on growing the business. Automation levels the playing field, giving smaller teams the efficiency and accuracy they need to compete. It’s less about your company's size and more about the volume and complexity of your transactions.
We already use an ERP like NetSuite. Do we still need a dedicated month-end close tool? That's a great question. While ERPs are powerful for core accounting, they don't always specialize in the detailed, often messy work of the close, like matching transactions from multiple outside sources. A dedicated month-end close tool acts as a specialized layer on top of your ERP. It integrates with it to pull data, but its main job is to handle the complex reconciliations and workflows that ERPs aren't built for, giving you a more complete and accurate financial picture.
What's the single most important thing to do before we start shopping for software? Before you look at a single demo, map out and standardize your current month-end process. Document every single step, who is responsible, and how long it takes. This exercise will immediately highlight your biggest bottlenecks and inefficiencies. Trying to automate a chaotic process only makes the chaos happen faster. By creating a clean, consistent workflow first, you'll have a clear blueprint for what you need the software to do, which makes choosing the right tool much easier.
Will this really make our audits easier? Absolutely. A manual close often leaves a messy, hard-to-follow paper trail scattered across spreadsheets and emails. Automation creates a clean, centralized, and unchangeable audit trail for every single transaction and reconciliation. When an auditor asks for backup documentation, you can pull it up in seconds instead of spending days digging through files. This level of organization and transparency gives auditors confidence in your numbers and dramatically reduces the stress and time involved in the audit process.
How does automation change the day-to-day role of my accounting team? It shifts their focus from data entry to data analysis. Instead of spending their days chasing down numbers and ticking and tying transactions, your team can focus on higher-value work. They'll have more time for variance analysis, financial forecasting, and providing the strategic insights that help leadership make smarter decisions. It transforms their role from being historical record-keepers to forward-looking strategic partners for the business.
Former Root, EVP of Finance/Data at multiple FinTech startups
Jason Kyle Berwanger: An accomplished two-time entrepreneur, polyglot in finance, data & tech with 15 years of expertise. Builder, practitioner, leader—pioneering multiple ERP implementations and data solutions. Catalyst behind a 6% gross margin improvement with a sub-90-day IPO at Root insurance, powered by his vision & platform. Having held virtually every role from accountant to finance systems to finance exec, he brings a rare and noteworthy perspective in rethinking the finance tooling landscape.
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