Because of the constant change in the modern business environment, businesses need to be adaptable and nimble to succeed. In terms of money, this frequently translates into a continuous need to reassess, re-forecast, analyze, and act when new data arises — on top of the regular, frequently stressful chore of closing the books.
Because of this, finance professionals constantly seek to discover ways to close the books more quickly. By doing this, time may be freed up to provide the company the flexibility it needs to adapt to changing needs. Finance professionals feel the urge to balance the books more quickly everywhere, and cloud systems like NetSuite and Sage 200 provide data collection, automation, and reporting tools that make this possible.
Here are some pointers for quicker book closure:
1. Implement accounting systems across the organization
Spreadsheet software used to be the best resource available to firms for producing financial reports. This has some significant restrictions but is still applicable today. For instance, it doesn’t catch data input errors, which could cause the process of closing the books to be delayed if a mistake is found later.
By automatically gathering and combining data from across the organization so that everything feeds into a single, central platform, ERP software can solve problems like these. By doing it this way; you can guarantee the correctness and full traceability while also speeding up the process considerably over manual data entry and transmission.
2. Encourage cross-company cooperation
The organization’s members must work together to close the books promptly. Accounting data must be double-checked to ensure a smooth and correct flow, accounting data need to be double-checked. Ensuring perfect compliance with accounting standards can also be aided through collaboration. Collaboration is greatly facilitated by software like ERP, which has capabilities that let workers submit output for review and approval. Additionally, this allows the approver to add comments and revisions, which the software immediately highlights so the employee can quickly determine where to concentrate their efforts.
3. Promote smart work processes
A significant obstacle to promptly closing the accounts is a delay in the deliverables of the finance officers. To aid with this, ERP systems offer established and customized workflows. These solutions mix automation and sequential procedures to give organizations greater visibility into accounting process bottlenecks. Additionally, everyone will be able to see what tasks are still open, who is in charge of them, their progress, and any comments made.
4. Aiming to Increase Compliance
Compliance with financial and accounting standards can be difficult for businesses that use several accounting systems, especially when numerous areas are involved. The organization must maintain a consistent set of data, but it may also be necessary to make certain adjustments to cater to the demands of various places. Creating a standardized collection of financial data for the central organization while updating the pertinent data for compliance in different geographic locations is possible with the help of built-in capabilities in ERP systems like NetSuite OneWorld. When closing the books can save a ton of time.
5. When possible, automate
The data and the work can be completed regularly rather than saving them up for a large project at the end of the month, quarter, or year if you can implement robust automation via your enterprise systems. It is much simpler for finance experts to determine the organization’s accounts payable and receivable thanks to the automation that your ERP’s financial capabilities give. Additionally, the software dramatically simplifies tasks like currency conversions and aging calculations, which may be time-consuming if done manually.
6. Keep Data Integrity
Data that has been corrupted, manipulated, or deleted can cause many firm problems. Because organizations rely on data to make decisions, it may be a costly issue. It pays to develop systems to ensure data integrity because the procedures needed to correct poorly maintained data can be time-consuming and hinder the closing of your books. By incorporating data classification, ERP systems offer built-in tools to help you do this, giving you peace of mind about your business’s financial data.
7. Delegate Roles Effectively
The roles and responsibilities of the personnel involved must be specified while auditing financial data. NetSuite may assist with this in several ways, such as producing reports based on user roles or running searches to identify users with administrative or “special user” roles. Having the tools for this can help with workflow optimization and data consistency assurance to ensure that the procedures needed to close the books go smoothly.
8. Condense the approvals process
Closing a journal entry requires internal permission, which could take many hours if you don’t have efficient software like a capable ERP. By automatically contacting the proper person whenever a request for approval is made, NetSuite’s “saved searches” feature, for instance, helps expedite the approval process. The period required to close the books could be considerably shortened. By automatically sending out permission requests to the right parties, Sicon WAP also coordinates the validation process.
9. Create High-Quality Financial Statements
ERP systems’ accounting and finance tools have access to all the data necessary to create trustworthy financial reports. The data classification aids in the creation of trustworthy reports from the combined data that may be adjusted with additional fields and other necessary components. ERP systems have capabilities for customized needs and the calculation of local taxes, and they employ real-time data to automatically generate reports, statements, and dashboards. You will have access to precise, up-to-date data in all reports, enabling you to move on with bookkeeping in confidence.
Conclusion
Taking Your Business to the next step can only become a reality if you have the right expertise to deliver outstanding solutions. At Seibert Consulting Group, we specialize in delivering modern solutions to businesses that aim at taking full advantage of the eCommerce platform. We always customize our solutions to align with Your Business’ requirements and goals. Let’s start talking about your project and find out how we can help Your Business grow. Get in touch with us via our chatbot or email at hello@seibertconsulting.com and via our direct line at 760-205-5440.
