Achieving financial excellence: enhancing the month-end close process

What is the month-end close?

The month-end close is a process in which accountants finalize all financial activity for a company every month, providing a comprehensive view of its financial health. While this process is critical for ensuring compliance and facilitating informed decision making, it often presents challenges for many businesses. The complexities involved can oftentimes lead to inefficiencies that put stress on finance teams.

Common challenges with the month-end close

If you’ve ever encountered difficulties with your month-end close, you’re not alone. Many finance professionals face challenges such as manual processes, inaccurate reporting and tight deadlines, which can make the process feel daunting. Some of the most common challenges associated with a month-end close include:

1. Lack of automation: One of the largest challenges faced with the month-end closing process includes a lack of automation. Businesses that manually reconcile their accounts face significant burdens without automated systems. The dependence on manual methods drives up the risk of inefficiencies and consumes time that could be better spent on strategic tasks. By failing to automate persistent tasks— including journal entries and accruals—businesses miss out on opportunities to streamline their workflows and end up prolonging the month-end close.
2. Inconsistent data entry: Data entry errors can significantly slow down the month-end closing process and reduce its accuracy. When finance professionals manually input data, the risk of human error increases, leading to mistakes like duplications and typos. These errors can also lead to inconsistencies that complicate the reconciliation process. Additionally, relying on manual data entry methods takes up large amounts of time.
3. Fragmented systems: Finance professionals who utilize outdated and disparate systems for financial reporting often find themselves lacking the features needed to streamline their processes. When financial data is housed across multiple platforms, finance teams struggle to achieve a cohesive view of their company’s financial health. This fragmentation forces them to search for data from multiple sources, leading to delays.

How to streamline the month-end close

By selecting the right financial management software, companies can expedite the month-end close and make the process smoother by automating manual tasks and providing real-time visibility into their financials. Implementing cutting-edge financial management software can offer several key benefits:

1. Automated manual tasks: Automation can drastically streamline the month-end close by minimizing manual tasks and providing real-time access to important data. By automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks such as data and journal entries, finance professionals can quit wasting time on manual tasks. This enhances accuracy and frees up time for more strategic projects, leading to improved decision-making
2. Integrated technology: Leveraging integrated technology is an increasingly popular way for businesses to enhance their month-end closing and overall processes. Platforms that integrate with one another can drastically cut down the time spent on the month-end close by automatically importing transactions into your accounting software. This helps to reduce manual data entry and errors. Additionally, integrated technologies enhance visibility across departments, empowering finance leaders to access real-time data, resulting in quicker reconciliations and more informed decision-making.
3. Data analytics: Advanced analytics tools play an important role in streamlining the month-end close by analyzing financial data, pinpointing discrepancies and providing strategic insights. By leveraging these tools, finance teams can detect issues earlier in the process, and conduct more timely corrections. With increased visibility into financial performance, finance professionals are empowered to make quicker, more informed decisions. This enhances the accuracy of financial reporting and allows for a proactive approach to financial management, enabling organizations to respond promptly to change.
4. Enhanced workflow management and collaboration: Many cutting-edge solutions incorporate workflow management features that allow users to assign tasks and set deadlines to help keep the process on track. This fosters better collaboration between team members and ensures accountability, helping to meet deadlines on time. By identifying potential challenges early, businesses can be proactive when addressing issues instead of being reactive.

See how we can help

Enhance the financial health of your home and commercial services business by streamlining your month-end close. At Baker Tilly, we specialize in providing tailored software solutions designed specifically for the home and commercial services industry, simplifying finance and accounting functions.

Our solutions integrate with leading platforms such as ServiceTitan and DASH restoration job management software, providing a seamless experience. With our products, you can automate manual tasks that often consume valuable time and lead to mistakes. This includes automating transaction conversions, bill payments, credit card applications and reconciling the subledger to the general ledger.

Discover how our products can transform your month-end close by downloading our comprehensive month-end checklist. See how other home and commercial services companies are successfully leveraging Sage Intacct and our innovative solutions to expedite processes and enhance efficiency.