Transform the finance close process by balancing process and tech

Timely, accurate, and compliant financial reporting is the backbone of the financial close process, which faces numerous challenges such as inefficiency and errors in data reporting. With recent technological advancements, enterprises have begun adopting tools to manage this process.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and robotic process automation (RPA) are potentially game-changing tools commonly integrated into existing processes. However, many CFOs and financial controllers still struggle to achieve full automation and continue grappling with inefficiencies in the process of financial close, including:

• Data quality: Data inconsistency remains an inherent challenge in the financial close process. Enterprises often struggle to centralize, standardize, and validate data across multiple systems and geographies, making reconciliation time-consuming and error-prone.
• Regulatory complexity: Growing regulatory scrutiny requires more granular and timely financial reporting. This adds complexity to the financial close process, making it challenging to achieve speed and accuracy simultaneously.
• Effective technology integration: Even with increasing ERP and RPA adoption, efficient reporting lags due to a lack of effective integration of reporting tools and communication.
• Lack of standardization in reporting: Decentralized intercompany reporting across subsidiaries and regions often delays financial closure. The absence of alignment among the entities leads to redundant efforts.
• Dependency on manual processes: Enterprises often use manual spreadsheets for reconciliation, exacerbating inefficiencies in the reporting process.

Bridging process efficiencies for improved financial closing

Persistent inefficiencies across the financial close process affect critical F&A areas. These include data quality issues, intercompany accounting mismatches, manual account reconciliations, and fragmented reporting structures. Inconsistent month-end close calendars, reliance on spreadsheet-based reconciliations, and delays in journal entry approvals delay closing timelines.

Functions such as accruals management, fixed-asset accounting, and cash-flow forecasting often operate in silos, creating misalignments in reporting and liquidity planning. Addressing these challenges requires standardizing intercompany processes, adopting real-time reconciliation tools, integrating predictive analytics for variance detection, and embedding audit preparedness into daily workflows. By focusing on granular, process-specific improvements—such as automating recurring journal entries, aligning closing calendars across entities, and enforcing robust data governance—finance leaders can significantly enhance accuracy, speed, and compliance in financial closing cycles.

The HFS Pulse survey (see Exhibit 1) shows that legacy technology, a lack of data governance, gaps in technology leadership, and a lack of automation are among the top challenges financial leaders face and critical bottlenecks to driving efficiency and competitiveness. This emphasizes the need for holistic process modernization, strategic leadership, and stronger governance.

Our objective in the finance world is to automate as much as we can, freeing ourselves from manual and repetitive tasks and replacing them with robotic solutions wherever practical. This shift is driven by the need to adapt quickly to market changes, improved decision-making, and increased operational efficiency.

— CFO of a leading pharmacy management operator

Exhibit 1: Internal challenges CFOs face within their

Sample: 25 CFOs, Global 2000 companies
Source: HFS Pulse Data, 2025

Elimination of tech bottlenecks can accelerate complete automation

While enterprises continue investing in automation and analytics tools, these tools often lack full integration into daily workflows. The absence of seamless connectivity among the tools and data silos also adds to integration challenges. Additionally, these tools might not be utilized fully due to inadequate finance team training.

Also, finance leaders often perceive the cost of automation tools as high, discouraging many from investing in this significant technology upgrade. This delays the integration of advanced technology compared with the growing requirements of the finance function.

However, implementing unified platforms that eliminate silos with integrated modules brings standardization across ERPs and integrating centralized data warehouses for regular reporting, and ensuring data accuracy helps mitigate intercompany reporting challenges and technology inefficiencies.

In this context, the CFO of a real estate company said, “We can’t just buy a tool for every single task; instead, we need to leverage the tools we already have in place. Our goal is to continue automating processes, reducing reliance on Excel spreadsheets, and improving the flow of financial information within the finance team. This will enable more effective real-time reviews, which, in turn, leads to a tighter reporting process. We need to encourage team members to push beyond their perceived limits, as even small improvements can lead to significant time savings. We need to focus on the right data and ensure it is structured properly. It’s also important to centralize the data to avoid multiple interpretations that may lead to incorrect conclusions due to different filtering methods.”

A holistic approach is required to bridge the gap and bring process standardization

The key to successful finance function transformation requires bringing together processes and technology and implementing an impactful change. Streamlining processes is critical for eliminating redundant activities, standardizing workflows, and developing well-structured, applicable reporting frameworks that are seamlessly followed across the organization. Centralized reporting boosts transparency and collaboration and eases the financial close process:

• Strong data governance is an essential foundation for automation. Accurate, consistent, and secure data can enable enterprises to gain the full value of their technology investments.
• Driving intercompany collaboration and breaking down silos helps instill a culture of cooperation and accountability, further streamlining reporting.
• While technology remains a critical enabler, finance leaders must deploy tools that are more strategically focused on solving challenges related to the continuous accounting process and are scalable to drive ROI and help navigate regulatory complexities with real-time, accurate reporting. For example, implementing RPA can automate repetitive tasks; however, integrating AI will deliver predictive insights.

Efficient real-time insights, data quality checks, and standardization can help maintain the integrity of financial data, reduce errors and delays, and build a solid foundation for fully automating the financial close and reconciliation process.

Enterprises can enhance the financial close process by adopting functional SaaS platforms such as BlackLine. A British pharma company working with a service provider introduced BlackLine for reconciliation automation, improving visibility with real-time dashboards, and conducting extensive process diagnostics to identify inefficiencies.

The Bottom Line: Finance executives must drive technology adoption and harmonize fundamental issues to make the financial close process more agile.

Along with technology, finance leaders need to resolve systemic challenges such as data quality issues, regulatory and functional silos to realize the full potential of their investments and create a resilient and future-ready finance function.

Adopting a continuous close model—where reconciliations and validations happen throughout the month—can reduce month-end pressure, minimize errors, and deliver real-time financial insights for faster decisions. With automated controls and dynamic dashboards, finance leaders can shift from periodic reporting sprints to an ongoing cycle of accuracy and transparency.