Closing the financial year is a lot of work and with so many unresolved issues, many companies put off the final close for as long as they can. Closing revenue, expense, and dividend accounts at the end of each month is a recommended practice, but not everyone does it.
Financial close automation software makes close management a lot easier. These systems include automatic account reconciliation and can pull through missing transactions into your journals and through to GL to balance the books.
Here is our list of the seven best financial close automation software:
- Oracle Hyperion Financial Close Management: Best financial close automation software for large organizations. This module is available with Oracle’s cloud-based ERP system and extends the regular operations of the data management package to closing.
- BlackLine: Best financial close automation software for SAP users. Use this tool to improve the flows of data through an SAP ERP to speed up and automate closing.
- FloQast: Best financial close automation software for orchestration. An orchestration tool that gives you additional team management functions and automation to make closing easy.
- Redwood Finance Automation Record to Report: Best financial close automation software all-rounder. A cloud-based orchestration package that manages data flows through your existing software to reconcile, close, and report.
- Oracle NetSuite: Best financial close automation software for medium-sized businesses. Oracle’s scaled-down ERP offers full data management for organizations from transaction recording through to reporting.
- Dolibarr: Best financial close automation software that is free to use. This extensive package of ERP, CRM, HR, and Web management tools include an accounting package that draws in data from day-to-day transactions.
- Intuit QuickBooks: Best financial close automation software for small businesses. Run your own business with this package that will automatically compile your financial reports after closing.
Close Automation Software Development
Ultimately, a business’s accounts are a record of that company’s activities during the year. Closing the financial period seals off those records so that they can’t be altered. So, all activity needs to be booked before the close can occur.
The journal entries that add up to the final position are derived from day-to-day activities within the enterprise. So, business processes raise transactions that feed into journals and compile the accounts.
Data from an invoice or goods received note flows through to a balance sheet and the Profit and Loss statement. The traditional method of reading figures off a document and writing them into a ledger creates the risk of transposition errors. If journal entries are incorrect, there is no hope of getting a correct statement of the business’s profitability.
Automation removes human error. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP systems) pool business transaction details behind the scenes into a common database. Thus, information from one business process can easily be accessed as source information for another. Similarly, that flow of data can continue through to automated journal entry creation, reconciliation, and closing.
Close automation software extends the efforts of an ERP system and takes care of the task of transferring data from one column to another and making sure that everything balances.
Close management systems are defined as part of the wider field of Record to Report (R2R). A business records transactions in the R2R system and the software then automatically transforms that data into financial statements.
The best Financial Close Automation Software
As most businesses already have computerized accounting systems, there is no need for financial closing software to reinvent the wheel and do all of that accounting work all over again. Remember, the magic of R2R lies in reusing data that is already in the system to produce financial statements and automated closing is a necessary stage in that journey.
The producers of ERP systems have a head start in the creation of R2R packages and financial close automation software. Those ERPs hold all of the information needed for automated reconciliation, closing, and reporting, so extending those packages with an R2R module is a straightforward task. Thus, many of the ERP systems that are currently available also include close management functions.
Another type of close management software provider has emerged and these coordinate between separate accounting packages to flow data from one to the other, automatically generating the data needed for closing. This data flow management is called “orchestration”.
That means there are two types of software systems to look out for when researching financial close automation software: ERPs and orchestration services.
What do we look for in the best financial close automation software?
When looking for the best financial close automation software, we prioritized the following factors:
- Market diversity – We looked for the best package for each type of business rather than the first, second, and third-best overall.
- Platform – We favor cloud-based systems because they are easier to run. However, we added in one on-site package for those who don’t like SaaS platforms.
- Integrations – Flowing data between business processes is essential for automated closing so we looked for packages that either fully integrated into ERPs or could connect directly to them.
- Security – Protection for data at rest and in motion is important and all of the packages that we chose include it. We also looked for packages that enabled the creation of individual accounts for team members to enable activity tracking.
1. Oracle Hyperion Financial Close Management
The best financial close automation software for large organizations
Oracle’s cloud-based ERP system has been around for a long time. Over the decades, it has expanded and deepened, enabling you to input very detailed information about your operations. An accounting management module is available for the system and that is called the Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) module. Within this package of reporting is the Hyperion Financial Close Management system.
The entire Oracle ERP system facilitates data flow, so automated journal entry creation, matching, and reconciliation are already built into the package. Hyperion Close Management adds team management functions, allowing managers to allocate tasks for investigations into ledgers that can be closed automatically. This allocates deadlines and constructs a process flow to allow all tasks to be completed in time. You can chase up key issues and identify missing approvals to get closing completed.
The Oracle system is particularly useful for multinationals because it can be adapted to suit the local accounting practices of many countries. The system can be used to perform cross-border consolidation to complete the parent company’s account period closing.
2. BlackLine
Best financial close automation software for SAP users
BlackLine is an orchestration system that connects improves the performance of your ERP with a specific ability to facilitate period-end closing. The BlackLine platform is cloud-based and has a specialist module for managing the data held in SAP implementations.
SAP already has comprehensive services for close management with its Advanced Financial Closing module. However, many companies still keep some of their records outside of the SAP system and the BlackLine package helps to gather all of that information into one place. Some conglomerates don’t fit together very well and even though all divisions might be using SAP, the consolidation of those accounts could be problematic. The BlackLine SAP Financial Mission Control Center is designed to ease these issues.
While moving data between accounts, BlackLine logs all activities, enabling businesses subject to SOX to show that the final accounts are a true record of the business’s activities.
3. FloQast
Best financial close automation software for orchestration
FloQast is a SaaS platform that was specifically created to orchestrate between accounting packages to conduct the closing. The environment allows the creation of individual user accounts for team members and has a system of task allocations. So, it creates a collaboration system as well as process automation services.
As FloQast scours sources for journal entry data, it performs reconciliation of accounts and updates figures in your existing accounting package. Not all entries can be dealt with manually, so the system notifies assigned team members of tasks that need to be completed and entries that should be examined, explained, and adjusted.
Given a final closing date, the system places deadlines on each contributing task to ensure that issues can be dealt with in time. Tasks that fall behind schedule trigger alerts in the management console so that they can be reallocated or escalated.
As FloQast is a cloud-based system, it doesn’t matter where team members are physically located. This is a great benefit for companies that operate many sites and need to include local managers in the examination of transactions. It is also possible to allow home-based workers to participate in the financial period close process.
4. Redwood Finance Automation Record to Report
Best financial close automation software all-rounder
Redwood is a cloud-based orchestration platform that allows users to assemble a process flow diagram and then define each step. The details required for each stage are the software that will run the job, what input it will get and where it should send its output. The input usually comes from the previous step and the output goes to the next step along.
Redwood has created a pre-packaged system that automates data flows for financial institutions. The Record to Report functions of this package achieves automated closing.
The Redwood system scraped transaction data out of ERPs and generates journal entries. It then reconciles accounts and takes care of the bulk of that work, sending out notifications about exceptions that need to be dealt with manually. You don’t need to wait until year-end to activate the Redwood system. It can be used throughout the year for monthly closing and also to extract ongoing financial performance reports. It will also provide formatted financial statements.
BEST FINANCIAL CLOSE AUTOMATION SOFTWAREALL_ROUNDER
Redwood Finance Automation Record to Report is a great pick for financial close automation because it threads together your existing separate software systems to create a closed-loop, unified R2R structure. The Redwood system pays for itself by cutting down manual work and reducing staff costs. The system removes errors in the accounts that could result in penalties if not detected.
5. Oracle NetSuite ERP
Best financial close automation software for medium-sized businesses
Oracle’s ERP is suited to large organizations and especially multinationals. Most businesses in the world will find that system a little unwieldy. So, Oracle offers a second ERP that has a wider appeal. This is NetSuite and it flows transaction data through to journals, offering automated reconciliation and, therefore, a lot of financial close automation.
Oracle NetSuite offers an account structure. It contains roles to assign to user accounts and they limit access to screens and, therefore data. There are also access levels that limit the actions that different user types can perform on each screen and it also creates an approvals hierarchy.
The system includes an accounting module, so you can convert transactions through to ledgers and on to period close for account summaries that will generate the company’s financial statements. All activities in the system are attributed and reversible.
6. Dolibarr
Best financial close automation software that is free to use
Dolibarr is an on-premises package that is available for Windows and Linux. The system is a full ERP, which includes an accounting module. Also included in the package are modules for HR, CRM, and Web management. The great thing about this enormous set of functions is that it is completely free to use. Although it is free, the Dolibarr system is not amateurish.
The ERP can convert completed transactions through to journals and you can choose to implement monthly closing or let the books stay open until the year ends. The administrator account can set up individual user accounts to grant access to limited parts of the system to different users, creating hierarchy levels for user types as well.
The Dolibarr system can be accessed across the network or the internet. So, although it is self-hosted, it can be made accessible to remote users.
7. Intuit QuickBooks
Best financial close automation software for small businesses
Intuit QuickBooks has a close function that activates when the user goes to the settings of the set of books and checks the Close box. This is an example of how Intuit simplifies accounting tasks for the userbase that is largely made up of owner-operators.
The QuickBooks system operates as a business support system and doesn’t make its accounting functions obvious. Data flows from business processes to ledgers and ultimately to tax statements and financial reports are automated and operate silently behind the scenes. The close automation doesn’t resolve all issues. However, when the user wants to close the period, the system will check for the outstanding issues that prevent that from happening and bring them to the user’s attention.
All that can be automated is taken care of by QuickBooks and that includes account reconciliation. Anything that requires missing information to be input is flagged as an alert. Once those extra pieces of the puzzle are provided, QuickBooks completes the period close.
