How Does Automating the Financial Close Process Benefit You?
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The financial close is a vital process for the Finance & Accounting (F&A) team to ensure all items are properly reconciled and the accounts are ready to be certified. For too long, organizations have been conducting this process manually with error-prone spreadsheets and disconnected systems. As you explore automation options, it’s time to see the true benefits of automating the financial close process for you and your team.
For some organizations, the financial close process has always been fraught with delays, miscommunication, misdirection and blown budgets. They may want to scale up their business and move into new markets – all while keeping incremental costs minimal. Let’s explore how automation can work for them!
“It’s incredibly frustrating to have a disconnect between the data in our ERP and the manual processes our F&A team uses.”
– Ivan the IT Project Manager
Within the financial close, 76% of your automation benefit impacts operational efficiencies.1 For many organizations, they often had to mail documents between two branches and faxing was just as laborious. Automation gives them the benefit of bringing everyone’s ideas and comments together in a unified digital platform.
Jerri the GROUP TREASURER “When I finally get all the records together, I am very limited in my planning ability since I can’t receive updates throughout the reporting period.
When companies conducted their financial close manually, they were never sure of missed tasks, data entry-mistakes and their risk of misstatements until the end. Now, by automating the financial close, they can catch that understated expense receipt before the auditors come to town. One of the major roadblocks of conducting the financial close with manual methods is that documents, corrections and mistakes can often be lost in the process. Automated reconciliations can impact to up to a 47% improvement in visibility, 2 a major boost to planning organizational change in advance.
“At the end of every reporting period I had to spend entire days tracking down physical documents and sifting through layers of emails, so I kept running out of time.”
– Cam the Controller
Companies have always been challenged to bring together all the necessary documents in a timely manner. They have well-trained staff, but lack integrated technology processes. With automation, they can experience up to a 30% reduction in time to complete and monitor close tasks.3 Closing faster leads to reduce staff and resource costs.
Manny the MANAGER “Now that we have our financial close processes streamlined, we can focus our valuable personnel and budgetary resources on strategic planning for our expansion into new markets.”
To learn more about how automation solutions can improve your financial close process, download our eBook.
Written by: Chelsea Downey
