Desire to Shorten Accounting Cycle Drives Greater Adoption of Software
By 2027, half of midsize and larger enterprises will use close management software to speed the close and achieve greater control of the process, a new ISG report finds
The ISG Buyers Guides for Financial Consolidation and Close Management, produced by
For enterprises with especially complex structures and reporting requirements, the ability to consolidate using multiple accounting standards at different levels and branches of the corporate hierarchy requires especially robust software platforms, the report notes.
“The need to increase the productivity of finance and accounting departments has been driving demand for consolidation and close management software. Over the past decade, applications have become more capable while easier to implement and use,” said
The reports note that today’s consolidation and close software offers more effective collaboration features to streamline the close process and ensure resiliency, including secure data sharing as well as centralized document storage for working papers and supporting evidence.
Most companies agree that organizations should complete the accounting close within a business week. Workflow automation is especially useful in accelerating the close-consolidate-report cycle, specifically to manage the process in a hybrid working environment and for organizations that span the globe, the reports say.
The reports note that with workflow-enabled processes, administrators spend far less time ensuring individuals have started or completed their tasks, hand-offs are smoother and, where reviews and approvals are required, these events are recorded and easily accessed by external and internal auditors and support attestations that internal controls and procedures have been followed.
Consolidating and closing the books should be almost exactly the same from one period to the next, including processes for handling exceptions and unexpected events and managing the close calendar. With workflow management, the reports say, the controller and chief accounting officer can spend less time on administration while having greater situational awareness and control.
Today’s technology also can help finance and accounting executives make their departments more productive, improve the overall working environment, and enhance their ability to attract and retain the best talent in a resource-constrained environment, the reports note.
Advances provided by artificial intelligence and generative AI will likely make dedicated close management software an even more compelling choice, especially in a time of growing complexity in accounting and the need for increased staff productivity, the reports say. While accounting relies on doing the same things consistently, how they are done is always evolving because of legal and regulatory changes and the constant change in how accounting principles are reflected in processes.
The ISG Buyers Guides for Financial Consolidation and Close Management evaluate software products based on these capabilities: ownership structures, currency, intercompany management, journals, roll-up structures, multi-GAAP reporting, data validation, collaboration, compliance and auditing, application of AI/Gen AI to processes, reconciliations, process and administration, and analysis and reporting.
For its 2024 Buyers Guides for Financial Consolidation and Close Management, ISG assessed software providers across three financial consolidation and close categories – Financial Close, Financial Consolidation, and Financial Close and Consolidation – and produced a separate Buyers Guide for each. A total of 21 providers were assessed: BlackLine,
Financial Close: Oracle, BlackLine and SAP
Financial Consolidation: Oracle, OneStream and SAP
Financial Close and Consolidation: Oracle,
”The heightened need for efficiency and speed in financial processes require automation and software to achieve accurate results in a timely fashion,” said
The ISG Buyers Guides for Financial Consolidation and Close Management are the distillation of more than a year of market and product research efforts. The research is not sponsored nor influenced by software providers and is conducted solely to help enterprises optimize their business and IT software investments.
Visit this webpage to learn more about the Buyers Guides for Financial Consolidation and Close Management and read executive summaries of each of the three reports. The complete reports, including provider rankings across seven product and customer experience dimensions and detailed research findings on each provider, are available by contacting
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