Whereas most accountants seem to differ on a lot of topics, most of them agree on one daunting concept, the Month-end close. A survey of accountants shows that 82% of all accountants perceive a month-end close exercise as one of the most horrific experiences of their accounting profession. Well, this is not a good number from such an illustrious career. Besides, it is the job of an accountant to handle this close at the end of every month. Luckily, if you are in this position, there is something you can do to make a financial close easier and more enjoyable duty for yourself.
But first, let’s assess the reasons why this financial close is not an exciting task anymore.
If your company uses NetSuite products, then the accounting process will be much easier and faster. However, there is only a limited number of things that NetSuite can handle. The rest, such as recording and tracking of the workflow, are beyond the reach of NetSuite. To make matters worse, communication between your company and NetSuite is broken only, resulting in the lack of openness and uglier process of recording of information.
Your company may most certainly not notice this problem because it lingers and becomes a regular occurrence. The outcome is that information available at the end of the month is scanty.
Another reason why financial close is less impressive is that the sharing of files over the local drive has been disorderly. Also, no procedure is recorded. Further, the fast-paced environment of the workplace has led to no one minding about the information.
The result has been a change of perception of the accountants. For them, the close refers to long hours of working to put everything in order. Most report that the closing process brings them more stress, with a third of this population saying that it also impacts their intimate relationships.
So what can your company do to alleviate the stress of its financial management employees, corporate controllers, and CFOs?
What to Do To Alleviate Stress
The monthly closing has had some bad effects on the employees, which most certainly calls for eliminating the process and adopting these five month-end closing hacks on NetSuite:
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Your Collaborative Financial Close Checklist
The Financial Close Checklist monitors the roles and performances of employees, making them aware of the impact of their position on the company’s overall goal. For example, each individual will be aware of what they need to do. On the other side, leaders will have an idea of the possible limitations to goals set for employees.
At first, you may think your company could have gotten all the above from NetSuite’s End Close Checklist, but it is a misbelief, and any NetSuite Admin or IT guy needs to do some digging. For example, think of the NetSuite OOTB Checklist as a 30,000-foot view allowing you to select a box next to AP. It is obvious to most accountants because checking the box means that every other task has to be completed.
Excel and Google Docs could easily track sign-offs and tasks, but this process would be challenging for a new team. Noteworthy, Seibert Consulting Group has NetSuite capabilities that could easily service the other accounting teams in the mid-market.
For example, Stack Overflow saw the potential in the checklist. The training and networking company used the structure of this collaborative checklist to create a better close list considering they previously used a soft-close system that was quite skeletal. Their new close list had timelines, controls, clearly defined processes that smoothed the closing process, cutting the monthly by twelve days. Previously, they closed after 22 days, now with only ten days.
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Create more standard folder structures and reconciliation templates
Having a standard template allows you to make the review, training, reconciliation, and auditing processes sleek. All you need to do is to paste work on a template automatically, avoiding any repetitions. Further, it is easy to access and file because your company has now developed a more organized folder design.
Therefore, your accounts department needs to pay a closer look at NetSuite’s Fixed Assets and Bank Reconciliation Module for any huge transactions that require clearance. By automation this process of reconciliation, you can reduce by half time spent on the reconciliation of large accounts.
By the way, you just read this and started asking questions such as how we automate Sub Ledgers, clear Account Matches, and other items with robust transactions, then you may find FloQast tools more helpful.
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Examine the mix of your talent again.
Tech is taking over accounting and finance processes. Therefore, you need to shift to people that can make the most use of technology, first, by employing someone who is technology-adept. Also, watch out for employees with NetSuite or Cloud ERP and with a belief of the impact of tech in providing efficiency.
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Adopt cloud accounting technology
Cloud platforms adoption can turn around the way your company stores data. Access to data will be more comfortable and quicker. Moreover, you don’t need to worry about the state of documents, considering they are already online and more transparent.
You can start cloud accounting technology by having a Microsoft checklist on Microsoft’s OneDrive or SharePoint. The use of a close management software solution for monitoring review notes, reconciliations, and check the listing of items like RevLocal.
There is no doubt in what NetSuite ERP can do to transform your company’s month-end close processes. It can do Accounts Payable and Receivables, bank reconciliations, and revenue recognition. However, your accounting team has to do things like tracking workflow and documentation.
There is a lot your company could benefit from a streamlined month-end close process on NetSuite ERP. For instance, if your company uses cloud accounting tech, the close process will reduce by about three days. The result is a happier corporate finance team and quicker closing of the books.
