The 5 Financial Close Rules You Need to Break

While many elements of finance and accounting differ across industries, the financial close is one that plagues finance teams in every industry, which are beset with reporting errors, visibility issues, workflow bottlenecks, and continuous time drains. 

Although some companies are aware of these monthly challenges, many fail to make changes due to either fearing change or fixing the wrong parts of a broken close process. 

Fearing change leads to a substandard status quo becoming the norm, as change is intimidating and increases the FUD ratio (fear, uncertainty, and doubt). Failing to fix a broken close process, due to mistakenly solving for the wrong “X” in the close equation teams, often stems from leaders focusing the treating the symptoms rather than the actual problem. Consequently, the challenges referenced above are not completely solved and any benefits achieved are short-lived. 

In order to provide your financial close with the right type of disruption, here is a list of five financial close rules you need to break. 

1.Stick to the status quo

As discussed above, change can be difficult, however what is more difficult is encountering the same challenges today, tomorrow, and into the future. Reject the status quo and drive optimal improvements in your financial close process. 

2.Work within non-standardized systems and processes

A lack of standardization leads to unreliable results, inconsistent documentation, and workflow bottlenecks. Moreover, as your company experiences growth, a non-standardized process is  unscalable and will further exacerbate your financial close challenges. 

3.Publish results no matter what, even if you’re not 100% confident with them

This speaks to the adage: “Garbage in garbage out.” If your numbers are not accurate, your overall team value is being diminished. How can you focus on strategic initiatives when one of the basic tenants of your organization (produce financial reports quickly and accurately) is not being achieved? 

4.Work late, it’s a necessary component of the close process

As the labor market changes, this has been the paradigm of baby boomers, but it isn’t for millennials. Millennials embrace technology and leverage it to increase workplace efficiency. If you don’t make this a priority, you could be in the unenviable position of having trouble retaining this new work force. 

5.Remain content with a lack of visibility

Why wouldn’t you want to understand who owns what project, the status of the project, and timelines/deliverables? Without this knowledge in the financial close you are at a constant disadvantage. This can create a culture that struggles with accountability and deadlines.  

Adra is the new kid on financial close solution block (with 1,300 customers Worldwide and growing). Click here to understand how we can work together to help you take control of your financial close.