Month-End Close: Key Findings and Areas for Improvement

The latest Sixthfin/Odoxa survey¹, sheds light on persistent pain points, as well as levers that remain under-utilised, on the path to a truly controlled close. It was conducted between 11 and 23 March with 303 senior finance decision-makers involved in the month-end close process at UK companies with 250 or more employees.  

Beyond the objectives of compliance and meeting financial reporting deadlines, the month-end close has other significant elements. These include the reliability of information produced, audit traceability, robustness of internal controls, and the need for rapid analysis. For finance and accounting teams, the goal is to achieve lasting, sustainable improvement within organisations, which are facing ever-growing operational pressures. 

A Fast, Concentrated and High-Pressure Close 

Month-end close timelines are tightly defined and broadly met; most closes are completed in fewer than eight working days. Yet this performance still rests on fragile foundations, such as intense team involvement, heavy reliance on key individuals, and an assortment of production and control frameworks. 

First finding: the close is an intense effort compressed into a short window. 74% of companies complete their close in 3 to 8 days, regardless of company size. This compression reflects strong team commitment, but leaves little room for unexpected, in-depth analysis, or upstream risk mitigation. 

The main difficulties identified are primarily organisational and people related. Late receipt of information remains the factor most frequently complicating the close, cited by nearly half of all respondents (44%). This is followed by a proliferation of spreadsheet files (38%), reliance on key individuals (35%), insufficient time for controls (33%), and excessive manual rework (25%). 

These findings highlight a widely shared reality: the close still relies too heavily on workarounds and individual expertise, rather than on genuinely secure, scalable processes. 

Excel at the Heart of the Process: From Workhorse to Weak Link 

Account analysis and reconciliation remain largely in manual activities in the majority of organisations. Excel is used by 67% of finance decision-makers for these tasks, typically alongside their ERP, and 61% also rely on collaborative tools such as SharePoint or Teams. 

Only 15% of companies are currently able to carry out account analysis and reconciliation without Excel or desktop office tools. This situation raises well-known concerns for finance functions: inconsistent practices, difficulties with traceability, error risks, dependence on tacit knowledge, and growing complexity of internal controls. 

Note: Inadequate tooling is only perceived as a major difficulty by 14% of respondents. Although tools are not always well-suited, teams have learnt to work around imperfect systems, at the cost of an ever-growing mental and operational burden. 

A Human Impact That Has Become Critical 

The consequences of this high-pressure model are stark. The close has a significant impact on workload according to 97% of decision-makers, and on staff motivation for 93%. 

Sources of stress are multiple and cumulative: deadline pressure (96%), insufficient time for analysis (86%), concurrent cross-functional projects (88%), poor quality of available tools (93%), and unreliable data (86%). The close is increasingly a focal point for both operational and human risk. 

In the longer term, this situation raises a genuine question about the sustainability of finance and accounting functions. This is ongoing, in the context of talent shortages and difficulties attracting people into financial roles. 

Data Reliability: An Objective Still Out of Reach 

Whilst deadlines are broadly met, confidence in the numbers is a different matter. Only 67% of finance directors say they are highly confident in the reliability of their accounts once the close is complete. Yet nearly 70% identify reliability as their top improvement priority, well ahead of timeliness or process optimisation. 

This gap is telling: the close, as currently conducted, does not consistently deliver fully secure, analysable financial information within the time available. Accordingly, only 42% of senior executives rate their organisation’s management of the close as highly satisfactory. 

Towards a Genuinely Controlled Close 

The improvement priorities expressed by respondents span the entire close cycle. They include: calculating closing entries (45%), reviewing manual journal entries (50%), account analysis and reconciliation (53%), and analytical review (50%). This breadth of concern indicates that no single stage of the process is currently considered to be fully under control. 

In this context, artificial intelligence is emerging as a credible lever: more than 8 in 10 decision-makers say they trust AI to automate certain tasks, detect anomalies, and help improve data reliability. That said, only 40% express full confidence, confirming the need for a clear methodological framework and a phased implementation approach. 

This transformation also requires an evolution in the role of accounting teams. They will need to develop stronger analytical capabilities and a greater ability to exploit more reliable, more timely financial information.

¹ Full study available at: https://sixthfin.com/en/resource/sixthfin-report-on-accounting-transformation/

Sixthfin is a European fintech specialising in risk detection and process optimisation solutions for finance, control and audit functions. 

Odoxa is an independent research institute founded and led by two specialists in market research and media.