The great increase The pandemic has caused a significant disruption in business creation across most industries, which is primarily reflected in significant and widespread disruptions in both old and new technologies. Today, technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are being applied across multiple departments and are helping teams work collaboratively at a faster pace.
Financial groups are no exception to this trend. The month-end closing process can greatly benefit from automation, reducing manual errors, streamlining internal controls, eliminating recurring events and tasks, and providing real-time insights into the process for faster decision making.
However, adopting new platforms and technologies to speed up processes can be overwhelming and time-consuming, especially when you don’t know where to start. So, I’ve put together three key strategies to put you on the path to fully digitizing your business and dramatically improving the closing process.
Automate low-value tasks
The information gathered through these steps allows you to quickly identify the root issues of your business, allowing you to assess what to do next.
There is a growing need to remove tedious and repetitive tasks from your team’s plate so you can focus on the things that matter. But when it comes to the financial closing process, what can be automated and what should?
These are a few repetitive tasks that, when automated, can help your team check their status or progress at a glance.
- Preparation and evaluation of accounting records reconciliation.
- Completing and managing closing details.
- Balance sheet flow and/or P&L variance analysis.
- Analysis of data on month-end health and condition.
The information gathered through these steps allows you to quickly identify the root issues of your business, allowing you to assess what to do next.
Adopting automated tools will not only further streamline the closing process, but as technologies continue to improve, the teams that bring these together will greatly improve speed and accuracy. These investments will result in financial and operational growth, provide greater analytics and help in the decision-making process.
