A fast financial close has many benefits, including improving a company’s ability to actually analyze and take action on financials, rather than be stuck in the trenches dealing with the logistics of them. Fast closing refers to the speed at which a company can complete its accounting cycles and successfully close the books. Of course, while fast closing is desirable, attaining it cannot sacrifice the integrity of financials. Thus, many modern finance organizations are automating key accounting processes like consolidation and actually improving the process by eliminating the need for human input. Now, companies can perform traditionally laborious, error-prone tasks like intercompany matching, currency translation, and defining hierarchies and various charts of accounts automatically.
Key functionalities that enable a fast close include:
- single version of data
- intercompany matching and eliminations
- currency translation and multi-currency support
- defining legal structures
- determining legal entities and reporting units
- ability to set unlimited hierarchies to support complex ownership requirements
- define control groups between main accounts