Your accounting department houses one of the busiest teams of your business, particularly as the months draw to an end. This is because you’ll need financial statements, estimates, and reports to make plans for the months ahead. Unfortunately, there are several challenges that often make it hard to maintain smooth month-end closing processes. Fortunately for you, you can find quick solutions to these issues with the right ERP system!
Let’s take a quick dive into some common challenges for month-end closing goals and how Acumatica can help you solve them.
3 Common Month-End Close Challenges
1) Manual and Duplicate Data Entry
One of the challenges you’ll notice when handling your month-end closing responsibilities is this: manual entry of data is very time-consuming. You might have multiple systems helping you run your business, but, in the end, they’ll most likely be running independently. As a result, for your accounting department to deal with the month-end closing targets, your team will need to upload data into your accounting systems manually.
Unfortunately, this process is tedious and prone to errors, so it’s essential to find an automated solution. Even after feeding the data into the system, your accounting team will need to ensure the information corresponds accurately across all the platforms. Ultimately, this manual process is a drain on your resources.
When your team has to enter data into your systems manually, there’s a higher risk of making mistakes. That’s why finding a system that can automatically transfer data from one system to another is a great way to make the month-end closing process smoother. Even the smallest errors in your financial statements can lead to huge problems if the information is used to make plans.
Additionally, once you realize an error in the data, it’ll take a lot of time and energy to find the source of the mistake for correction if you’re using manual processes. This could cause delays in the release of your monthly financial statements, as your accounting team will have to spend time reviewing the work they’ve done.
2) Unstandardized Month-End Close Process
Your month-end closing process should generally involve the same steps each month. However, when integrating data from different departments manually, you’ll probably meet new challenges every time. That’s why your process should be standardized to ensure you get accurate and consistent results monthly.
A standardized process will help you attain your month-end closing goals, even when your accounting team might be a little short-staffed. On another note, the lack of a systematic method of balancing your books can put your staff in a position where they look for shortcuts around their responsibilities. These workarounds will increase the possibility of errors in your financials, which will likely cause future problems.
3) Delayed Financial Reports
Another challenge you might face could be the speed of assembling your monthly financial reports. In other words, how much time does it take for your accounting department to draw the statements after the month ends? If it takes too long, you need a way to improve the efficiency of your month-end closing process. It’ll be hard to make future decisions and plans when you can’t access information when you need it.
Managing your business won’t be as smooth as it should be when your financial statements aren’t readily available. When you don’t have the right tools in place, you’ll experience a reduction in the effectiveness of your organization’s processes—you’ll lose insights into business trends and necessary adjustments.
Error-Prone Transaction Entries: How Acumatica Can Help Solve Your Month-End Close Challenges
1) Automated Data Entry
The first benefit of getting an ERP system is automating manual processes like data entry. With Acumatica’s software, your staff won’t need to enter data into the system multiple times. Instead, any data they fill into the system will automatically appear in all the other departments’ systems.
This will reduce the workload for your accounting team, leaving them to focus on other responsibilities. With a harmonized system that communicates data across different functionalities, your team will have a smoother way of maintaining accurate records.
2) Standardized Month-End Closing Processes
Acumatica can also provide a standardized month-end closing process, thanks to the automated bank feeds and cash management functions. As long as your team is trained to use the software, it won’t be challenging to keep things running even when your top accountant isn’t available. Having a method of assembling your financials will help you achieve consistent results.
When you have a particular way of handling your month-end closing process, you can use managerial insights to make timely decisions on matters affecting your business. Also, your staff won’t need to look for unorthodox ways of meeting your month-end goals.
3) Timely Generation of Financial Statements
Say goodbye to delays in your monthly financial details with the Acumatica ERP system. Since there won’t be a need for manual reconciliation of information, you won’t have to wait too long before you get the financial statements of the past month. Your accounting department will have an easy time generating reports and tracking financials to ensure you can get information when you need it most.
A timely generation of your business financials will help you gain insight into altering or improving your approaches to achieve enhanced business performance. As such, you can make decisions based on real-time data to ensure everything runs smoothly.
4) Error-Free Accounting Data
Let’s talk about the reduced risk of errors in your financial data. Unfortunately, even well-trained employees are prone to mistakes every once in a while, and the smallest errors could wreak havoc on your enterprise accounting responsibilities. That’s why you need Acumatica’s integrated system to ensure that data is accurate and consistent across multiple departments. Humans are humans, and we’re prone to errors on occasion, but with the right software, you can reduce the likelihood of these complications.
Without errors in your information, you can make effective decisions and take timely action to exploit trends in your industry. So, if you are looking for a way to improve accuracy in the accounting department, Acumatica is the answer to your problems.
Modernize Your Financial Close With MIBAR
Put an end to this time-consuming, frustrating process. Cloud ERP can automate many of the most labor-intensive tasks your accountants face each month—freeing them up to better serve the needs of your executives. Get the whole story in our eBook Take the Pain Out of Month-End: Modernize Your Financial Close. We discuss:
- The top 7 symptoms of a bad month-end close process.
- How real-time results can keep everyone on the same page.
- Why automated adjustments may be the key to your efficiency.
- How to automate low-value, high-tedium tasks with cloud ERP.
- What it takes to “close as you go” on a continuous basis.
Luckily, meeting your month-end closing goals don’t have to be a hassle. With Acumatica Financial Management, you can streamline your processes and stay on top of your game when using timely reports to make decisions. MIBAR helps companies work smarter and grow faster with Acumatica Cloud ERP. With our 30 years of experience in transforming businesses, we are excited to help you meet your challenges head on. So, contact us today, or view our Acumatica Demo and we’ll help you achieve your month-end closing objectives.
