If Your Close Takes 15 Days,
You're Making Blind Decisions.
A 15-day close means you learn what happened in January on the 15th of February. By then you've already lived half the next month without the numbers. Slow close isn't an accounting problem — it's a decision-making problem. We fix it.
It's Almost Never a People Problem
Slow closes are built into the process. You can't fix them by asking the team to work harder — the team is already working hard. You fix them by redesigning the process, the tools, and the calendar.
No Close Calendar
The team closes whenever things show up. Revenue cutoff is sometimes Friday, sometimes Tuesday. AP is always last. Accruals happen in batch instead of daily. Without a published day-by-day close calendar, every close is a small emergency.
Batch Processing Instead of Continuous
AP, AR, and expense categorization are saved up for end of month. They should be happening every day, in real time. A close that starts on day 1 of the month is 4 days faster than one that starts on day 5.
Spreadsheets in the Critical Path
Consolidation, intercompany, revenue recognition, accruals — all done in spreadsheets that one person owns. When that person is out, close slips 3 days. When the formulas break, close slips 5.
Reconciliations Left for the End
Bank, credit card, payroll, merchant — all reconciled after close instead of continuously. Every reconciliation question becomes a close-blocker. Spot reconciliations daily and close doesn't wait for them.
Review Bottlenecks at the Top
The CFO or controller reviews everything at the end. They find 10 things wrong. Team fixes them. They review again. Another 5 things wrong. The close stalls on review cycles. The fix is earlier, smaller reviews throughout the close — not one big one at the end.
No Soft-Close Discipline
The best teams do a soft close on day 3 that's good enough for management reporting, then true it up by day 5 for external reporting. Companies without this practice wait for perfection and deliver late.
How We Get You to 5 Days
Project-based engagement. Defined scope. Measurable outcome. You keep the people; we rebuild the process around them.
Weeks 1–2: Diagnose
Shadow one full close. Map every step, every handoff, every delay. Identify the top 5 bottlenecks by hours lost. This is almost always non-obvious — bookkeepers blame auditors, auditors blame systems, systems blame data entry.
Weeks 3–4: Redesign
Build the new close calendar. Move batch work to continuous. Consolidate spreadsheets into ERP-native workflows. Document the accounting policies that should be automatic but aren't.
Weeks 5–6: Implement
Stand up the reconciliation automations. Reconfigure the ERP for the new close. Train the team on the new calendar. Run the first close with the new process, side-by-side with the old.
Weeks 7–8: Prove
Second full close on the new process alone. Measure against the baseline. Fix the remaining friction. Most clients are at 5 days by the second close; some need a third close to lock it in.