Month End Close Archives -

Wrap-Up: Reimagine Your Month-End Close with Sage Intacct

Written by Mark Byrd on April 24, 2023. Posted in Trusted CFO Solutions Blog Posts.

As the end of the month approaches, many finance and accounting teams brace themselves for the hectic period known as the month-end close.

In our previous articles, we have explored different aspects of the month-end close, including where to begin, how to speed up the close, and best practices with Sage Intacct to overcome the challenges that prevent a smooth monthly close.

In this article, we outlined the key points from this series and provided additional insights to help your team master the month-end close.

Where to Begin: Your Comprehensive Checklist

Staying organized at the end of the month can be overwhelming. With so many moving parts and crucial deadlines to meet, to say it’s challenging is an understatement. A smooth, efficient, and successful month-end close is the goal of every business, but how do you get there?

Start with a checklist! To make the close process easier, establish clear deadlines and task ownership to establish accountability for all parts of the process. Preparation and attention to detail are essential when building your checklist to ensure all financial records are up-to-date and accurate.

Read the full article: A Checklist for Success

Shortening the Monthly Close Without Cutting Corners

The month-end close is a notoriously lengthy process, leading to a backlog of work and creating unnecessary stress. It can take 5-10 days for a typical business to close the books at the end of each month, and many aren’t well-equipped to speed up this process.

By using automation tools powered by software and technology, you can fast-track your monthly close and reduce manual tasks that take up too much of your valuable time.

Read the full article: Techniques to Slash Your Month-End Close

Navigating Challenges of the Monthly Close

At the end of each month, businesses and their finance teams — especially smaller ones still adjusting to closing the books each month — face numerous challenges affecting progress and financial accuracy. The month-end close often presents challenges to companies.

Four of the most common challenges we explored include:

Data inconsistency and endless spreadsheet management
A lack of clearly defined processes for the close
Being reactive to monthly events rather than proactive
Outdated software and limited financial insights

Read the full article: Decoding the Challenges of the Month-End Close

Sage Intacct Strategies for a Smooth Month-End Close

In its most basic sense, the month-end close involves closing out the books for the month and providing a full financial overview. However, this involves hours of time and grunt work checking data accuracy, ensuring regulatory compliance, and meeting deadlines for financial reporting.

Sage Intacct is a robust accounting software that can help streamline the month-end close process and simplify daunting tasks. Implementing a continuous close approach, automated workflows, and leveraging a customized chart of accounts will keep you flexible and unlock better performance insights.

Read the full article: Best Practices to Perfect Your Month-End Close With Sage Intacct

If you want to learn more about incorporating these tips and strategies into your monthly processes, contact us today! Our team of advisors will help you master the month-end close so you can focus on more strategic activities to drive business success.

Best Practices to Perfect Your Month-End Close With Sage Intacct

Written by Mark Byrd on April 5, 2023. Posted in Trusted CFO Solutions Blog Posts.

As your business reaches the end of each month, your finances require precise maintenance, but that also means diving headfirst into endless spreadsheets and financial statements —an absolute nightmare.

The cloud accounting solution, Sage Intacct, is an excellent resource to keep your financials on track by creating an efficient month-end close without the headache or hassle of sorting through documents and tracking mistakes.

By following a few simple steps and taking advantage of its robust reporting capabilities, your business will stay organized, precise, and ready to start the new month. Let’s take a look at the benefits and best practices for a month-end close with Sage Intacct.

Benefits of the Month-End Close with Sage Intacct

Sage Intacct offers a range of features and integrated tools that help organizations reduce the time and effort needed for the month-end close, making the process simpler and ensuring the financial information is accurate and reliable

Here are a few key benefits to using Sage Intacct during your month-end close:

Integrates with your existing systems, such as Salesforce, to eliminate the need for manual data entry and maintain data consistency.
Streamlines invoicing and payment processes help you get paid faster and reduce the time it takes to close out the month.
Uses one set of financials and multi-dimensional reporting with an integrated General Ledger and real-time views of current and historical data.
Allows user-defined workflows to improve efficiency, compliance, and transparency, providing consistent audit trail visibility.
Accruals and reversals are automated, and entries are visible at all times, reducing the manual work needed for journal entries and reconciliations.
Identifies variances and anomalies that don’t comply with accounting standards with intuitive dashboards and reports that work based on your preset conditions.

Best Practices

Your accountant is under a lot of pressure at the end of the month to manage the close in a timely manner. With Sage Intacct, you can alleviate some of that pressure and ensure your organization’s financials are accurate, secure, and provide powerful insights.

Incorporating the following best practices to get the most out of your month-end close:

Establish a Continuous Close. A continuous close is a different approach to the monthly reporting cycle that aims to reduce the time and effort required for the close process. It provides real-time data and involves ongoing data management throughout the entire accounting cycle rather than at the end of the month.
Implement Automated Workflows. Sage Intacct provides the ability to set up pre-defined workflows for efficiently closing the period-end accounts and automating tasks like data entry, journal entry creation, and account reconciliations. Combining the power of automation and the continuous close allows for a much simpler period-end, freeing up time to focus on other important business activities.
Customize Your Chart of Accounts With Dimensions. Your chart of accounts allows for greater flexibility and tracking with Sage Intacct Dimensions. You can customize it to suit your organization’s specific needs, categorizing the information by company, department, or other key dimension values.

Move Beyond Traditional Manual Processes With Sage Intacct

In the world of modern business and new advancements, companies need to leverage technology to stay competitive and drive growth. By moving beyond traditional manual processes and adopting a cloud-based financial management solution like Sage Intacct, you can streamline your month-end close process, improve data accuracy, and gain deeper insights into the performance of your business.

If you’re ready to optimize your processes and leverage real-time reporting, get in touch with our financial advisors today.

Decoding the Challenges of the Month-End Close

Written by Mark Byrd on April 2, 2023. Posted in Trusted CFO Solutions Blog Posts.

The month-end close is a critical process, and even more so because it affects all aspects of a business. Unfortunately, this process isn’t always smooth, and mistakes can happen, but having the right tools and systems in place helps ensure everything is correct, allowing you to use the month-end close to your advantage.

Our ongoing blog series explores how businesses successfully complete the monthly close: highlighting tools, checklists, and guidelines to prepare for month-end closing and better estimating how long the closing process will take.

We wanted to dig deeper and look at the specific challenges companies face when closing their books at the end of the month.

Challenge 1: Data Lives in Spreadsheet Madness

When it comes to your month-end close, data is king. But when your data lives scattered across multiple spreadsheets, gathering and organizing everything in time for the close can be challenging.

Spreadsheets are also prone to human error, and the last thing you need is to spend countless hours tracking down the source of an error. All it takes is one misplaced decimal point or added keystroke for an incorrect entry, and suddenly your entire financial report is inaccurate.

Challenge 2: Lack of Clearly Defined Processes

Without a clear understanding of what needs to be done and when, you’re left stumbling around in the dark, increasing the risk of errors and omissions, which can have serious consequences.

Starting with a detailed checklist to define the steps of the close and establish roles and responsibilities will help set you up for a more successful close.

Challenge 3: Being Reactive Rather Than Proactive During the Month-End

You shouldn’t be functioning in constant crisis management mode. If you’re always reacting to issues as they come up and not addressing the root cause of the problem, you’re going to keep encountering the same issues month after month.

Here are three ways that reactivity can make the month-end close more difficult:

Lack of visibility: By only reacting to issues as they arise, you’re not getting a clear picture of the overall process. This lack of visibility can make it difficult to identify areas for improvement and can hinder your ability to make strategic decisions.
Time constraints: Reacting to issues is time-consuming and leaves little time for analysis or optimization. It’s easy to get bogged down in the details and lose sight of more important closing activities.
Increased risk: When you’re dashing to meet deadlines and constantly putting out fires, you’re more likely to overlook or miss important details altogether.

Challenge 4: Outdated Software Causing Limited Financial Insight

Many accounting teams lack the resources and tools to efficiently handle the month-end close. This makes it difficult to understand performance from one period to the next and limits their ability to have access to real-time financial insights.

Fortunately, modern cloud solutions like Sage Intacct make it easy to unify financial operations and increase visibility into your business, bridging the gap between siloed, manual processes and dynamic, real-time visibility.

With a more advanced and up-to-date platform, gain key insights and build better processes to make the month-end close easier and faster to manage.

Learn more about how to overcome these challenges with our tips for best practices in our upcoming blog, or get in touch with our trusted financial advisors.

Fast-Track Your Financials: Techniques to Slash Your Month-End Close

Written by Mark Byrd on March 30, 2023. Posted in Trusted CFO Solutions Blog Posts.

We know that you’re all too familiar with the fact that managing your company’s finances is a never-ending, ongoing task. Your accountant is the unsung hero who supports you through all the ups and downs of your financial journey. But even the most experienced accountants face their own set of challenges, especially when it comes to the monthly close.

Follow along in our newest blog series as we explore the challenges and discover best practices for improving the process. From techniques for tackling issues head-on to tips for what not to do, we will walk you through the steps to create more efficient workflows and master the month-end close.

In this article, we’ve highlighted strategies to help reduce the time it takes to complete the close and free up valuable resources for your business.

The Month-End Close Takes Longer Than You Think

So, how long does the month-end close take?

It can take anywhere from 5-10 days, and businesses often need help expediting the tasks associated with the monthly close cycle. Several factors can drastically impact the amount of time needed to close the books, including:

Company size
Complexity of transactional data
Incomplete or inaccurate data
Reliance on manual activities
Communication gaps
Lack of collaboration
Number of systems used for storing financial data
Level of prior preparation
Unexpected external events

Understanding the factors that impact the month-end close and how to streamline your process will help you create more efficient workflows and significantly shorten the monthly close.

Less Stress Leads to More Success: Why a Faster Monthly Close Is Key

Faster and more accurate closing cycles ensure your advisors, CFOs, and controllers have up-to-date financial data to base important decisions. Shortening the month-end close means the long nights, exhaustive calculations, and intense planning will reduce to a fraction of the original time, keeping workloads light and stress-free!

Here are some ways you can shorten the month-end close:

Build a comprehensive checklist: A checklist is your roadmap to success. It will keep you organized and accountable during the accounting period and month-end close.
Streamline reporting processes: Identify areas you can implement an automated solution that saves time and simplifies procedures.
Regularly reconcile accounts: Instead of waiting until the end of the month, reconcile your accounts regularly. This speeds up the monthly close and keeps your figures correct and records up-to-date.
Leverage cloud-based technology: Invest in an efficient and user-friendly accounting system with cloud-based capabilities to maximize data security, improve transparency, and increase month-end efficiency.

Mastering the Month-End Close With Modern Accounting Tools

Modern accounting tools like Sage Intacct can be a major advantage for simplifying the month-end close. It provides a well-designed, flexible, and secure platform that saves time and effort by automating tasks that would otherwise bog down your team’s productivity.

Leveraging this technology can lead to a faster and smoother month-end close, but working with a trusted accounting partner with a wealth of knowledge and expertise in your financial systems will set your business up for a successful future while reducing the burden of the month-end close.

Take Control of the Month-End Close: A Checklist for Success

Written by Mark Byrd on March 26, 2023. Posted in Trusted CFO Solutions Blog Posts.

As a business owner, the end of the month can feel like a whirlwind: hectic, chaotic, and overwhelming. But by following a structured checklist and diligently staying on top of your core financials, you’ll alleviate some of your stress and keep your business on solid financial footing.

If you’re ready to conquer the end-of-month chaos, follow along in this blog series as we dive into the ins and outs of the month-end close.

10 Comprehensive Steps for Your Month-End Close Checklist

Here we have broken down the month-end process in a step-by-step checklist, so you can feel confident, informed, and prepared to tackle the month-end close:

Review transactions: The first step to kick off your month-end period is to review all transactions for the month. This includes bank statements, invoices, receipts, and other documents retaining financial data. Make sure everything is accurate and there are no discrepancies.
Reconcile accounts: Once you’ve reviewed all transactions, you’ll need to reconcile and account for all transactions. This involves matching the balances in your general ledger to the balances in your bank statements and other financial records.
Adjusting entries: Made at the end of the accounting period, adjusting entries record additional transactions to keep your accounts accurate and up-to-date. This includes accruals, deferrals, prepaid expenses, deprecation, or other adjustments.
Review journal entries: Accurate financial reports allow you to make more informed decisions about your business. By reviewing all journal entries, you’ll ensure they are correctly categorized and coded.
Check for errors: Make sure your reports have no errors or discrepancies and that all numbers add up correctly. Even a tiny mistake can have significant consequences, impacting cash flow and legal implications.
Close sub-ledgers: Reconcile all sub-ledgers and include any journals and related entries so you’re prepared to close them out. Any discrepancies should be noted and cleared, and you must also include any new or unrecorded transactions.
Prepare financial statements: With your sub-ledgers closed, you can now prepare your financial statements. Include your income statement, balance sheet, and statement of cash flows.
Review financial statements: Before finalizing your financial accounts, review them carefully. Take this time to assess your tax liability and areas of improvement.
File all documents, paperwork, and statements: As the last step in the month-end close process, all financial records should be archived and saved for future reference.
Begin the next accounting cycle: Review any last-minute details and prepare yourself for the new month.

Now that we’ve reviewed this checklist, the month-end close may not seem so bad. But the reality is that the month-end close is a daunting task, especially if you’re working with outdated software or manual processes.

Divide and Conquer: Making the Month-End Close a Breeze

One way to make your close more efficient and less stressful is by automating as much of the process as possible. This could include using software to reconcile accounts, generate reports, and archive records.

If you want to delegate your financials to a trusted outsourced partner and get ongoing support, we’ll help you break down the process and streamline your monthly close. We want to help you power through this stressful season and confidently complete each step of your month-end close.

Contact us today to learn how we can help you slash your close time and empower your company with growth and continued success.

Your Guide to a Fast and Accurate Close With Sage Intacct

Written by Mark Byrd on February 11, 2023. Posted in Trusted CFO Solutions Blog Posts.

Whether you’re working on your monthly, quarterly, or annual close, the process from beginning to end is tedious and time-consuming. Many businesses aim to optimize the process of closing the books, but obtaining a faster close is difficult without also compromising accuracy.

Having the right strategies in place helps open up new opportunities while preventing major roadblocks in your financial reporting.

Continue reading to learn about our tips for achieving a faster, more accurate close, and how Sage Intacct grants finance teams the freedom to focus on higher-value initiatives.

1. Utilize a Continuous Close Cycle

Closing the books is often a source of stress for companies burdened by risk-prone processes and the daunting accumulation of year-end or month-end activities. Sage Intacct and more modernized systems are building the foundation for continuous accounting without the need for ongoing work — data calculations, reconciliations, and the collection of financial information — from your finance staff.

A continuous close turns what once was a lengthy activity, into an independent process that seamlessly runs in the background, keeping accounts up to date.

2. Rely on Automated Accounting Functions

The stress and time spent on manual accounting functions just aren’t worth it. The average accounting team spends 25 days on their annual close, taking valuable resources away from more meaningful operations.

By relying on automation for your core accounting functions, you’ll slash the close time by half while seeing a direct boost in productivity. Sage Intacct’s accounting software makes it easy to keep accurate records throughout the year, preventing future accounting mistakes and optimizing cash flow. You won’t feel like you’re always behind at the end of the close cycle or stuck reviewing manual entries and endless spreadsheets.

3. Leverage AI-Powered Technology

The AI-powered technology of Sage Intacct is adding real value to accounting teams by analyzing and interpreting large amounts of data quickly, efficiently, and accurately. Scan thousands of journal entries in seconds based on specified parameters and build trust in your numbers.

Added benefits of leveraging artificially-intelligent software include:

Catching discrepancies with AI-based outlier detection
Testing for accuracy in a fraction of the time
Enhancing accounts payable and receivables processes
Flagging transactions that pose potential fraud risks

4. Make the Move to the Cloud

Gain access at your fingertips. On-premise solutions don’t offer the superior flexibility of cloud accounting, which gives organizations access to critical financial data from anywhere. Growing in popularity, 94% of accountants have turned to cloud accounting solutions in favor of efficiency, ease, and reliability.

Cloud accounting sets you up for long-term growth and prevents workflow delays that lengthen the close process. A faster and more accurate close ultimately frees up your team to deliver strategic insights as opposed to spending their time on menial, repetitive tasks.

Have questions about how you can improve the accuracy of your numbers and shorten the close cycle? We’re here to help answer them. Contact Trusted CFO Solutions to explore even more possibilities with Sage Intacct.

Tag: Month End Close