Month-End Close Acceleration: How to Close Books in 2-3 Days, Not 15

Your competitor just closed their books on day 2. You're on day 15, still chasing down reconciliations.

That 13-day gap isn't just an operational inconvenience. It's costing you real money. 

Late board meetings mean delayed strategic decisions. Slow closes mean your forecasts are based on stale data. 

And every day your finance team spends reconciling spreadsheets is a day they're not analyzing what the numbers actually mean.

Here's the reality: month-end close acceleration isn't about working harder. It's about eliminating the manual chaos that turns a 2-day process into a 15-day slog.

In this article, we'll show you exactly how fast-closing companies do it, what's slowing you down, and the five concrete steps to cut your close time by 70-80%. 

Because your close timeline isn't fate. It's a choice.
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Why Your Financial Close Process Takes 15+ Days (And Why That's Not Normal)

The industry average close time is 15 days. Best-in-class companies close in 2-3 days.

What's the difference? Manual work.

Here's what's actually happening during those 15 days:

• Day 1-5: Waiting on Subledger Data Your AP team is still entering invoices from the last week of the month. AR is hunting down unapplied cash. Payroll hasn't finalized accruals. You're not even ready to start reconciling because the data isn't in the system yet.
• Day 6-10: Manual Reconciliations Now the real grind begins. Your team is exporting GL data into spreadsheets, cross-referencing subledgers, and manually identifying discrepancies. Each reconciliation touches 3-5 people. One error sends you back to square one.
• Day 11-13: Journal Entry Marathon Someone has to manually create adjusting entries for accruals, deferrals, allocations, and reclassifications. These entries often require multiple approvals, and there's no automated workflow, so they sit in email chains waiting for sign-off.
• Day 14-15: Consolidation and Reporting Finally, you're consolidating multiple entities into a single report. But because everything lives in spreadsheets, you're copying, pasting, formatting, and praying nothing breaks. Then you export to PowerPoint for the board deck.

Sound familiar?

The root cause isn't your team's competence. It's the architecture of your process:

• Manual reconciliations between GL, AR, AP, and subledgers
• Spreadsheet-based consolidations with no version control
• Manual journal entries with no automation triggers
• Human-dependent workflows that bottleneck on vacation days and sick leave
• Data quality issues that compound at every step

This system worked when your company had $10M in revenue. At $50M, it's breaking. At $100M, it's a liability.
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How Fast Closers Do It in 2-3 Days

Best-in-class finance teams aren't working faster. They're working differently.

Here's what a 2-day close actually looks like:
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Day 1: Pre-Close Automation Runs

Before the month even ends, automated processes are already working:

• Automated GL entries flow directly from AP, AR, and payroll systems
• Continuous reconciliations happen daily, not monthly, so discrepancies are caught in real time
• Pre-close journal entries for accruals and deferrals are triggered automatically based on predefined rules
• Subledger-to-GL reconciliation happens automatically with exception-based reporting (you only review what doesn't match)

One NetSuite partner we work with built a process where 80% of their recurring journal entries post automatically on day 1. Their team reviews exceptions, not every transaction.
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Day 2: Review, Adjust, and Close

On day 2, the finance team isn't data-entering. They're analyzing.

• Dashboard reporting shows real-time variance analysis
• Any manual adjustments are logged, approved, and posted within hours
• Consolidation happens automatically across entities
• Board-ready financials are generated from dashboards, not spreadsheets

Total manual work required: 8-10 hours per person, down from 40-60 hours in a 15-day close.

Here's a real example from an ERP consulting firm we support:

They used to close in 12 days. After implementing automated reconciliation workflows and pre-close entries, they cut it to 3 days. 

Their AP reconciliation alone dropped from 18 hours to 2 hours because the system flagged exceptions automatically instead of requiring a line-by-line review.

The difference? They moved from human-dependent to system-dependent.
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5 Steps to Month-End Close Acceleration

Cutting your close time by 70-80% isn't a fantasy. It's a process. Here's the roadmap:
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Step 1: Audit Your Current Close Process (Identify Time Waste)

Before you automate anything, you need to know where the time is going.

Map out your close process day by day:

• What tasks happen on each day?
• Who's responsible for each task?
• How long does each task actually take?
• What dependencies exist? (e.g., "We can't reconcile AR until Cash Management is done")

One software company we worked with discovered that 40% of their close time was spent waiting for approvals that could have been automated. 

Another found that their team was manually re-entering data that already existed in NetSuite because they didn't know how to pull the right saved search.

Output of this step: A detailed timeline showing where manual work is concentrated and where bottlenecks occur.
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Step 2: Automate Subledger Reconciliations

Subledger reconciliations (AR to GL, AP to GL, Inventory to GL) are the biggest time sinks in most closes.

Here's how to automate them:

• Set up automated reconciliation reports that compare subledger balances to GL balances daily
• Create exception-based workflows so your team only investigates discrepancies, not every line item
• Use saved searches or custom reports to flag variances above a certain threshold (e.g., anything over $500)

Instead of spending 10 hours reconciling AR manually, your team spends 30 minutes reviewing a report that shows the 5 transactions that don't match.

One Australian distribution company we worked with had an issue where exchange rate fluctuations were causing invoice discrepancies. We built an automated validation that pulled the original USD transaction rate into invoices, eliminating hours of manual recalculation every month.
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Step 3: Build GL Automation from AP, AR, and Payroll

Manual journal entries are productivity killers.

Most companies are still manually entering:

• Accrued expenses
• Deferred revenue
• Depreciation
• Intercompany eliminations
• Allocations

All of these can be automated.

How to do it:

• Set up auto-reversing entries for accruals that reverse automatically on day 1 of the next period
• Build allocation rules that distribute costs (like rent or software subscriptions) across departments automatically
• Integrate payroll systems so payroll GL entries post automatically after payroll runs
• Create templates for recurring journal entries that populate with updated amounts each month

One consulting firm we support used to manually enter 50+ journal entries every close. After building automation rules in NetSuite, that dropped to 8 manual entries. Time saved per close: 12 hours.
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Step 4: Create Pre-Close Entries (Before the Period Ends)

Why wait until the month ends to start closing?

Pre-close entries let you get 80% of the close done before day 1.

Examples of pre-close entries:

• Accrued payroll (you know what payroll will be before the month ends)
• Prepaid expenses (amortization schedules are predictable)
• Deferred revenue recognition (based on contract terms)
• Depreciation (fixed schedule)

One software company we work with runs their depreciation and amortization on day 28 of every month. By the time day 1 hits, those entries are already posted. All that's left is a final review.

The result: Instead of 15 days of work, you have 2-3 days of validation.
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Step 5: Set Up Dashboard Reporting (Eliminate Export and Format)

If your board deck starts as a GL export that gets pasted into Excel, then formatted in PowerPoint, you're wasting 10-15 hours per close.

Here's the better way:

• Build executive dashboards in your ERP that show real-time P&L, balance sheet, and cash flow
• Automate variance analysis so the system highlights where actuals differ from budget
• Create role-based dashboards so executives see high-level summaries and controllers see details
• Eliminate spreadsheet exports by pulling reports directly from the system

One promotional products supplier we worked with used to spend 6 hours formatting Excel reports for their leadership team. After building custom dashboards in NetSuite, that time dropped to zero. 

The dashboards update in real time, and leadership can drill down into details without waiting for finance to send a new export.
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ROI of Faster Close: What 10 Extra Days Actually Costs You

Let's work out the math.

Scenario: You're a $50M company with a 5-person finance team. Your average fully-loaded cost per finance employee is $75,000/year, or roughly $36/hour.

If your close takes 15 days and each person works 8 hours/day on close activities, that's:

• 5 people x 8 hours/day x 15 days = 600 hours per close
• 600 hours x $36/hour = $21,600 per close
• 12 closes per year = $259,200 annually

Now cut that to 3 days:

• 5 people x 8 hours/day x 3 days = 120 hours per close
• 120 hours x $36/hour = $4,320 per close
• 12 closes per year = $51,840 annually

Annual savings: $207,360

But the real ROI isn't just cost. It's decision velocity.

• Earlier board meetings = better decisions. If you close on day 2 instead of day 15, your board has 13 extra days to act on the data. In a fast-moving market, that's the difference between capturing an opportunity and watching a competitor take it.
• Faster forecasting = more accurate guidance. If your close is dragging into week 3, your forecast for the next quarter is based on incomplete information. Faster closes mean better visibility.
• Freed capacity = strategic finance. When your team isn't grinding through reconciliations, they can analyze trends, model scenarios, and support business decisions. That's the shift from accounting to FP&A.

One NetSuite services provider we work with freed up 10 hours of leadership time per month just by automating close workflows. That time went straight into strategy and client expansion.
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Your Close Timeline Is a Choice, Not an Inevitability

If you're still closing in 15 days, it's not because your business is too complex. It's because your process is still built on manual work.

The companies closing in 2-3 days aren't necessarily bigger, better-funded, or more sophisticated. They just automated the repetitive tasks and freed their teams to do what actually matters: analyzing the numbers, not crunching them.

Here's what you can do today:

1. Map your current close process and identify where time is being wasted
2. Pick one high-impact area to automate (subledger reconciliation is usually the best place to start)
3. Build one pre-close entry workflow to start reducing day-1 workload

Or, if you want a faster path, book a 30-minute close optimization call with our team. 

We'll walk through your current process, identify the biggest time sinks, and show you exactly how companies in your industry are cutting close time by 70-80%.

Because 13 extra days per month isn't just time. 

It's competitive advantage.

Ready to close faster? Book your 30-minute close optimization call here.

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