Simplify with 10 Financial Close Best Practices

Regulatory agencies have introduced a host of new standards and accounting rules impacting materiality thresholds, requiring detailed schedules and new disclosures for public filings. To complicate matters, many organizations are being asked to do more with less as headcount numbers are reduced in response to economic pressures.

The complexity of the financial close is driven by the size and nature of the company (private, public, or non-profit) along with the type of industry. Having this complexity adds layers of chaos impacts the end-to-end process and adversely impacts the time it takes to deliver the final financial statements.

10 Best Practices to Simplify Your Financial Close

Two overlapping strategies that can help to remove the complexity of your closing process are listed below.

1. Implement Best Practices: Consider using recommended best practices to remove the complexity from the closing processes. Implementing best practices can address current process challenges and facilitate a good foundation for financial close automation.

2. Financial Close Automation: Automated solutions can significantly simplify your financial close process. As an example, you can automate your closing checklist to assign tasks and approvals through workflow, which drives a streamlined reporting process.

The following ten best practices can help simplify your financial close, provide timely and accurate results and reduce the cost of the process. Each best practice is grouped by the strategies noted above.