Introduction
Throughout my career as a CFO/CIO, I have found in most cases it takes an inordinate amount of time to close the books and report information to key stakeholders in a timely and accurate manner. I have seen it take anywhere from three days to four weeks, and in a few cases even longer to “close the books”. I will share some of the experiences the teams I have had the pleasure of working with have accomplished at companies where there are several entities, locations and stakeholders that not only included employees, but investors, auditors, tax accountants, banks, vendors, landlords and customers.
Continually Closing is not a Continuous Close
The term "financial close process" implies that closing the books has defined beginning middle and end. It doesn't. Frankly the financial close process had to be defined this way as businesses were pigeon-holed by technology that couldn't efficiently and accurately close the books.