Month end close process Streamline month end accounting

Once you have all your numbers nailed down, you’re ready to close the books. The process is a bit different depending on whether you’re using QuickBooks Desktop or QuickBooks Online, so we’ll go through those close processes separately. The month end close process involves recording, reconciling, and reviewing all business transactions and finalizing the account data for the month. One of the main challenges in month-end closing is the amount of time it takes to complete the process. Most organizations take around 5-10 working days to complete the month-end close. You could also look at investing in automation solutions that support data aggregation and segmentation.

With automation solutions, you don’t have to sacrifice accuracy for speed because you gain both when using financial automation software. This is an important step as preparing cash flow statements and balance sheets will help you know the funds available to each business unit. Month-end close is an essential process that can be refined and streamlined to achieve maximum efficacy with minimum error, waste, and disruption. Invest https://kelleysbookkeeping.com/cost-of-debt-formula/ in developing a fully integrated software environment to slash the “grunt work” of tedious manual workflows and eliminate obstacles like rogue spend, fraud, and human error. Establish firm closing dates, and develop processes to ensure all the necessary information is available and complete when it’s time to wrap things up for the month. As CEO and Co-Founder, Mike leads FloQast’s corporate vision, strategy and execution.

The steps of the month end close process

The process involves reviewing, documenting, and reconciling all financial transactions for that period. It is intended to ensure that all transactions have been properly accounted for, which allows the business to close the books on this financial activity and start a new month with a fresh set of records. Once you create a month-end close process checklist in Excel, you can use our financial close management software to automate tasks to save time, reduce stress and maintain accuracy. In accounting, monthly close is a series of steps and procedures that are followed so that a company’s monthly financial statements are in compliance with the accrual method of accounting.

In post-close meetings, discuss what worked and what didn’t, and review assigned roles and responsibilities for the next month. Review any lessons learned, any variances or abnormalities, and entertain any proposed changes to the process. During pre-close meetings, the team should discuss follow-up items from the previous month’s post-close meeting and determine the current month’s close schedule and timeline. You should also determine what staff should do if they run into barriers and how they should communicate any bottlenecks.

Financial Close

It involves many different tasks, including reconciling bank balances, posting journal entries, and preparing trial balances. These steps ensure that your financial statements accurately reflect the business’s financial position at the end of each accounting period. Also, it helps prevent mistakes or omissions and provides information for monitoring future performance and Month End Close Process making decisions about how well your company is doing financially. The month-end close process helps you to balance books, checks cash, and bank account and prepares financial statements. The month-end closing process is an important part of accounting because it ensures that all transactions have been recorded accurately so that your financial statements are accurate.

Here’s our month-end close checklist to help you organize your workflows. The month-end closing process is complicated and might vary for every business. So, if the employees are not given adequate training, they may find it challenging to carry out the process efficiently. However, just because your peers are closing faster,  you shouldn’t rush your month-end close. A better approach would be to steadily optimize your month-end process in a way that keeps errors at bay while reducing the close time.

What is the purpose of month-end close process?

However, performing them regularly will save time later when preparing for audits or tax returns because no mistakes will go unnoticed until then. There are only three phases in a month-end closing process – before, during, and after. Doing this correctly will help you streamline the financial processes of your business effectively.