For many finance teams, closing the books isn’t just a process anymore, it’s an extra time-consuming task that is taking days, sometimes weeks longer than it should.
This article breaks down what’s causing the slowdown, the impact on teams, and how modern finance systems are helping organisations reclaim their time.
What the research shows:
iplicit surveyed 1,000 finance decision-makers in medium-sized UK organisations. The results paint a clear picture:
• 86% say month-end takes longer than three days (up from 72% last year)
• 55% say it takes more than a week (up from 39%)
• 30% say it can take over two weeks (up from 17%)
• 10% say it drags on for more than three weeks
Month-end is getting slow and that delay has real consequences for both the business and the people doing the work.
How a slow month-end impacts the business:
When month-end dominates half the following month, finance teams spend more time looking backwards than forwards. That means:
- Planning and budgeting get squeezed into whatever time is left
- Decision-making slows down because leaders are relying on outdated data
- Teams lose the ability to be proactive, instead reacting to issues weeks after they’ve happened
In short, without current data, decisions are made in the dark
The human cost of a slow month-end.
The research also highlights the pressure on finance professionals:
- 40% feel stressed often or all the time
- 42% feel stressed at least sometimes
- 56% work six or more extra hours each month
- Only 7% stay within contracted hours
With more than eight out of 10 of finance leaders experiencing stress or burnout risk, it’s no surprise that 80% are worried about attracting new talent.
The problem: why is month-end a never-ending struggle?
As an organisation grows, finance work tends to become more complex and legacy processes struggle to keep up. Some common bottlenecks include:
- Chasing missing information such as unbilled work, unapproved expenses or invoices stuck in someone’s inbox
- Some calculations such as accruals, deferrals, VAT, intercompany eliminations, fixed asset depreciation are still done manually.
- Disconnected systems means rekeying data from CRM, POS or paper documents, increases both workload and error risk
These issues compound, turning what should be a structured process into a monthly scramble.
The solution: How finance teams are reducing the burden:
The gap between teams with efficient month-end processes and those without Is widening. The sharpest tems are adopting modern finance systems that:
- Automate manual tasks such as bank reconciliation, AP workflows, revenue recognition, fixed asset depreciation and intercompany eliminations
- Integrate systems so data flows automatically, eliminating rekeying and reducing errors
- Simplify reporting with flexible, audience-ready management information at the click of a button
With the right tools, month-end no longer needs to dominate the finance team’s wellbeing.
Want to improve your month-end?
Book a short demo with us where we can show you practical ways to automate and streamline your processes, giving your team accurate, real-time data without the month-end grind.
