"Businesses that automate 90% of their manual effort close the month up to 50% faster."
Sage - Close the Books Survey - 2021
Finance Leaders that spend too much time swept up in month-end are missing opportunities for growth.
Mountains of spreadsheets and reports that contain little useful information stop them from thinking strategically.
Reducing the pain of a month-end that's too long can be a simple as following three steps.
1. Define what good looks like
2. Map it out
3. Detail bottlenecks
4. Automate
Let's look at these steps in a bit more detail.
1. What does good look like?
Generally, 5 days is seen as OK, 1 day is seen as exceptional and a continuous close is sensational.
Companies with group structures, by the nature of their complexity, tend to take longer, but that's not to say that the above isn't achievable.
Either way, to start, you need an idea of how long you want your close to take. This needs to be in direct relation to how quickly you need to be able to report on your figures to make business decisions, as well as how much productive time you lose to manual month-end activities.
Also consider that 5 days, working evenings and weekends, is a lot different to 5 days working 9-5 so make sure you build this into your consideration as well.
2. Map it out
Very important, otherwise you're just guessing. If we're going to automate this process, we need as much detail as possible, otherwise, we're just going by gut feel.
Month-end may vary in time, but it should still have a similar structure. Do it as a step by step:
3. Detail bottlenecks
Once you've mapped out your month-end this process should become very easy as you can then start asking why... This is how we find the bottlenecks. Some examples below:
4. Automate
Once you have an idea of what looks good, you've mapped out your existing structure and you've identified why it's so long and painful you can then look to automate.
Some systems will even tie all of the above together.
If you're looking for ways to reduce your month-end and you think you could be making better use of technology to help you, fill out the below form and we'll be in touch to look at options and provide some guidance.
Working with finance leaders in small
to medium businesses, providing
advice on digital strategy and
providing insight on how technology
can be used to meet both personal
and business goals.
Working with finance leaders in small to medium businesses, providing advice on digital strategy and providing insight on how technology can be used to meet both personal and business goals.
A holistic IT provider giving
businesses the tools they need to amplify the performance of their team. Services included, business management software, managed IT services, security and IT consultancy.
A holistic IT provider giving businesses the tools they need to amplify the performance of their team. Services included, business management software, managed IT services, security and IT consultancy.
tech for finance
©2022 by Adam Shilton. Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
©2022 by Adam Shilton. Privacy Policy - Terms of Use