Five Steps for a Rapid End of Month
17 October 2023
Original content provided by BDO Australia.
A rapid month-end is the dream of all finance functions.
Many of our clients ask us to meet mid-month to avoid disrupting, interfering, or worse, creating more work around the month-end close-off.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
While there is the goal of continuous accounting, embedding month-end procedures into day-to-day tasks, coupled with automation - a rapid month-end can be achieved quickly through these five simple steps:
Get a whiteboard and sticky notes, identify all your month-end tasks, and develop a timeline.
Nothing is sacred, just because it worked previously, or we did it before does not mean we need to continue doing it.
All tasks that require another task to be completed should be identified, and these tasks then need to be aligned.
Don’t leave something open for an immaterial amount, have processes in place to capture and accrue material items.
Bringing the organisation’s management on the journey is vital. Let them know that management reports can be out by day 2, but you need their buy-in from the start to ensure it’s a true and fair reflection of the accounts.
These are just some of the tips for getting into a rapid month-end process. If these are implemented, then the finance team should be ready for a transformational change and have identified areas of operational inefficiencies and automation targets.
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