Research by Sage, the market leader in cloud business management solutions, reveals the host of unique challenges faced by today’s finance leaders—from economic uncertainty to compliance, cybersecurity risks and the everchanging expectations of their role.
This is according to Sage Platinum Partner, ALNET Technologies. “Sage reports these factors directly impact the time it takes to close the books each month, with most teams spending an estimated nearly three months a year on month-close activities alone,” said Gary Govender, Head of Business Development, ALNET Technologies.
“Increasingly, finance leaders are embracing the challenge of closing the books faster. They want to unchain their teams from repetitive clerical tasks and empower them to focus on higher-value, high-impact strategic activities. Sage conducted its 6th annual global Close the Books survey involving over 1,000 finance professionals with the goal of uncovering trends and insights into achieving faster and more accurate financial closing – a coveted prize for any finance department,” said Govender.
Invest in a faster close
He confirmed that organisations continue to invest in the close, with 33% adding more headcount, 40% adopting new technologies and 29% automating key accounting processes.
“Completing a close requires the coordination and execution of a series of processes, some of which may be inefficient and need to be automated or made redundant. To achieve a more efficient and faster close, just as with any other process that needs streamlining, you need to invest in any or all of these—new technology, additional headcount or resource time to evaluate and improve close processes,” he added.
Key findings
Some of the key findings revealed by the Sage research include:
- Finance teams take on average 7 working days to close the books each month—an average of 90 working days each year
- Automating financial close frees up 3x more time to focus on value-added activities
- Of those not fully on the cloud, 73% are looking to migrate in the next 2 years
- Over 50% of finance leaders have not yet automated processes around their top pain points
- Those with the least automation spend only 18% of their time on value-added tasks, while those with the most automation spend almost 58%
- Companies on the cloud enjoy 25% more automation than their counterparts
- Automation can save 24 working days each year
Govender confirmed 82% of finance leaders are saving on headcount costs through automation. “Finance leaders who embrace automation cut their closing time by 29%, which translates to 2 days every month – a staggering 24 days a year,” he said.
He noted that the survey hails the accelerated growth of finance teams worldwide who are harnessing the power of automation to amplify their impact and reclaim their most valuable resource—time. “Through automating the most tedious tasks associated with period-end closes, especially through cloud-based accounting software, finance leaders are unlocking their potential and increasing impact on their companies via greater productivity, efficiency and reporting accuracy across their teams.”
Customer success
Sage cited the Pavillon Treatment Centre in the US—a private, nonprofit residential and outpatient facility offering addiction recovery services—as one example of customer success. By migrating to Sage Intacct, the centre reported a 45% boost in productivity, shaved 11 days off its monthly close and freed up time to focus on critical work such as tracking data and statistics to support strategic initiatives, and improving departmental visibility to narrow the budget-to-actuals variance.
“This year’s global Close the Books survey highlights the accelerated growth of finance teams all over the world who are harnessing the power of automation to amplify their impact and reclaim their most valuable resource – time. Through the automation of the most tedious tasks associated with period-end closes—especially through cloud-based accounting software—finance leaders are unlocking their potential and increasing their impact on businesses. This is being achieved via greater productivity, efficiency and reporting accuracy across teams,” concluded Govender.
