How to cut monthly reporting from weeks to days

In many companies, management gets the monthly numbers around the 20th of the following month. By the time anyone can act on them, the next close is already here. In the meantime, the finance team spends most of its time retyping, reconciling and formatting rather than analysing. The basics of financial reporting are covered in What Is Financial Reporting and How It Drives Business Growth. Here we look at where the time goes and what to do about it.

Where the time goes

Only the first row is real accounting work. The rest is data handling, and much of it can be automated.

Seven steps to faster reporting

1. Get rid of exports

Reporting should read data directly from the accounting system and update itself. Then nothing needs to be copied, and the report is available at any time, not just after the close. We describe how this works for Pohoda in Reporting on Pohoda: Management Reports Without Excel Exports.

2. Separate the management structure from the accounting structure

Set up the mapping of accounts to the management P&L once and maintain it, instead of rebuilding it in Excel every month.

3. Put the plan in the same structure

When the plan uses the same structure as the actuals, variances are ready the moment the data is.

4. Review continuously, not at the end

If you see the data daily, you catch posting errors during the month, not at the close. Drilling down from a statement to the source document cuts the search from hours to minutes.

5. Set rules for the close

Agree deadlines with your accountants: when invoices must be posted, how accruals are handled, and when the month counts as closed. Fast reporting won’t help if the close is slow.

6. Share a dashboard, not files

When a report isn’t sent around, there are no versions of it. Everyone sees the current numbers, and only what they’re meant to see.

7. Take controlling down to cost centre level

Once basic reporting is automated, there’s time for more detailed analysis, such as cost centre and project profitability.

How much it saves

Results from real life:

• Piano Group went from kick-off to live operation across nine companies in 14 days and eliminated manual consolidation. CFO Tomáš Jiroušek says it saved the finance team dozens of hours of manual work every month.
• Effectix, after six months of unsuccessful attempts, got to working reporting in a single day.
• SPM moved around 60 companies from post-close reporting to numbers available throughout the month.

For what Symfio costs compared with building reporting in Excel or your own BI, see our pricing.

Monthly reporting calendar: before and after

A mid-sized group with four companies. Days are working days after month end.

Management gets the numbers ten working days earlier. The biggest saving isn’t in putting the report together. It comes from reviewing continuously, so errors get fixed during the month, not after the close.

Fast close checklist

• Supplier invoices are collected continuously, not all at once at month end.
• Bank statements are imported automatically and matched at least once a week.
• Recurring accruals (energy, rent, bonuses) have a set calculation and are posted the same way every month.
• Intercompany invoices are issued on the same date, and the buyer posts them by the deadline.
• There is a list of who delivers what, and by when.
• The report isn’t assembled by hand. It’s only reviewed and commented on.
• After every close, note what caused delays, and tackle it first next month.

Large companies close the month in three to five working days. A mid-sized company with good rules and automated reporting can get there too.

How Symfio handles it

Symfio reads data directly from your accounting or ERP system, refreshes it every night, and builds management statements, consolidation, plan vs. actuals and cash flow from it. From the P&L you can drill down through the accounting journal to the source document. Learn more on the Reporting and dashboards page.

What to automate and what not to

Automation isn’t meant to replace the finance team’s judgement. It’s meant to free up time for it.

The left column is work that repeats the same way every month, where people make mistakes out of fatigue. The right column is the work a company hires a controller or finance manager for. If your team spends most of its time in the left column, that’s where the biggest gains are.

Start with what hurts most

You don’t need to automate everything at once. Spend one month measuring how long each step takes, and start with the longest. For groups, it’s almost always data collection and consolidation. For standalone companies, it’s converting to the management structure and comparing with the plan. After the first step, the later ones often turn out to take less time, because they work with cleaner data.

FAQ

How fast can monthly reporting be?
With automatically connected data, the report is ready as soon as the books are closed. The limit then is the speed of the close, not of the reporting.

Do we have to change our accounting procedures?
Usually not. It helps to agree close deadlines and to consistently fill in cost centres or projects if you want to report on them.

What about the reports we have in Excel today?
Use them as the brief. The structure management already knows can be carried over. It just won’t be filled in by hand anymore.

Does it make sense to look at the numbers before the close?
Yes, as long as you know what’s still missing. A running view of revenue, margins and cash flow during the month helps you react sooner, and the final numbers then just confirm the trend.

Who should own monthly reporting, the accountant or the controller?
The accountant is responsible for the accuracy and timeliness of the accounts. The controller or finance manager is responsible for the report and its interpretation. In smaller companies, this role is often filled by an external CFO.