Make Close a Process, Not a Person

It varies enormously with business complexity, so your own trend matters more than any benchmark. Small businesses with clean, integrated systems and continuous reconciliation can close within a few working days. Larger organisations with multiple entities, inventory, foreign currency or manual processes take considerably longer. Rather than comparing against an external figure, measure your own and work on reducing it. A close that shortens month on month is a better sign than one that matches someone else’s benchmark.

Waiting on information that could have been collected earlier. Supplier invoices arriving after period end, expense claims not submitted, documentation not provided by clients, and reconciling items nobody looked at during the month. Almost all of it is knowable and collectable before the period closes. Teams that treat close as the time to start gathering information will always be slower than teams that treat it as the time to finalise information already gathered.

This is usually a false trade-off, and treating it as real is what keeps closes slow. Most speed improvements come from moving work earlier and automating identical entries, neither of which reduces accuracy, automation typically improves it by removing transcription errors. Where speed genuinely does compromise accuracy is when review steps get skipped under time pressure, which is a sign the close window is too compressed for the current process rather than an argument against improving it.

Reconciliation matching, recurring journals, depreciation, standard accruals and report generation all automate well and are supported by most modern accounting platforms. What remains human is judgement on unusual items, investigation of genuine exceptions, review, and the commentary that explains what the numbers mean. A realistic expectation is that automation removes a substantial share of the mechanical work while the review and interpretation stay entirely with qualified people, which is where they belong.

Someone other than the person who prepared it, without exception. The review should focus on movements, variances against prior period and budget, unusual items and anything that changed materially without an obvious cause. Review by the preparer is not review. It is a second pass by someone who already believes the numbers are right. In a small team where separation is difficult, a documented review checklist and a genuine focus on variances is the practical minimum.

It is a general template covering steps common to most Australian businesses and practices, and it will need adapting. Businesses with inventory, foreign currency, multiple entities, project accounting or industry-specific requirements will need additional steps. Regulated entities may have further obligations. Use it as a starting structure rather than a complete process, and add the steps specific to your circumstances. This is a template, not accounting advice.