How to improve your month end close reporting

An effective month end close reporting provides a clear picture of your business's financial health - highlighting irregularities and allowing you to make predictions about future performance. But are organisational obstacles slowing you down? It might be because you're lacking process or need the support of new systems or software to help speed things up.

Identifying obstacles 
Delays can turn what should be a simple administrative task into a time-consuming and complex undertaking. So make sure you're on the lookout for potential bottlenecks in the following areas:

• Internal: It's not only finance departments that need to be prepared for month-end. Operations, sales and procurement, human resources and systems should also be ready to supply the relevant data when it's required. All employees should understand their part in ensuring month-end close occurs on time and have adequate training to prepare.
• Systems: Do you have appropriate and documented systems in place and are your teams familiar with them? Could technology allow you to automate some of the process?
• External: You'll need all your current supplier invoices and up-to-date supplier and customer information at hand to ensure a speedy month-end close.

Putting a process in place 
Effective financial management comes down to having the right processes in place. Here are some of the ways to overcome any obstacles you might have identified.

Use a timeline 
Set the date you want to complete your month end reporting close by, and work backwards. By giving departments and any external parties a list of deliverables and a deadline, they can be ready to provide the information you need when you need it.

Work in advance where possible 
Get your finance department to work with other areas of the business, like operations, sales and marketing, to better understand what they're working on and anticipate payables and receivables. Where possible, request data during the month rather than on or after month-end. This will help reduce the close time and allow you to identify any red flags and investigate glitches before the close starts.

Reconcile regularly 
On the last day of the month, or earlier if possible, start reconciling your bank and investment accounts, debtors and creditors ledger and work-in-progress balances. If you operate a cash business, reconcile daily. It might feel like extra work to begin with, but it will save you time in the long run.

Turn to technology 
Simple collaborative and file-sharing tools, like Google Sheets and Dropbox, can create efficiencies in how teams collect and share data for reporting. Accounting software, like QuickBooks Online, Sage and Xero, take it one step further, automating a lot of the manual data entry required for month end reporting close. It also reduces the potential for human error when carrying out reconciliations and performing recurring calculations.

Month end reporting close doesn't need to be a hassle. Work with your team to map out a close process that works for them but ensures it's wrapped up promptly.

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