Picture this: It’s 8 PM on the third Friday of the month. Your finance team is still huddled over laptops, cross-referencing spreadsheets that somehow still don’t match. Someone mutters about a missing journal entry. Another discovers a subledger that wasn’t updated. You’ve got an ERP system that cost six figures, yet here you are doing everything the hard way.
Sound familiar?
Here’s the thing: You’re not failing at month-end close. Your process is.
At M&S Consulting, we’ve watched this scenario play out dozens of times. Smart teams, solid ERPs, yet the close process feels like pushing a boulder uphill. The good news? It doesn’t have to be this way.
What Actually Changes When You Get This Right
Let’s talk numbers for a second. According to PwC’s 2023 benchmark study, the best finance teams close their books in five days or less. The rest? They’re still grinding two weeks later.
But here’s what those stats don’t tell you: A faster close isn’t really about speed. It’s about getting your life back. It’s about your CFO making decisions with fresh data instead of month-old information. It’s about your team doing actual financial analysis instead of playing data detective.
When one of our healthcare clients cut their close from 14 days to five, something unexpected happened. Their controller told us the team was “actually enjoying their jobs again.” They weren’t working weekends. They had time to spot trends that previously got buried in the chaos of closing. Revenue forecasts became more accurate because they could see patterns while they still mattered.
That’s the real value. Not just efficiency, but sanity.
Your ERP Can Actually Do the Heavy Lifting (If You Let It)
Most ERPs are like Swiss Army knives that everyone uses as a screwdriver. They’re capable of so much more than storing transactions.
When properly configured, your ERP should:
Handle the boring stuff automatically. Recurring journal entries (depreciation, accruals, allocations, amortizations) should post themselves. Period. No manual intervention required.
Make reconciliations obsolete. When your subledgers (AP, AR, inventory, fixed assets) actually talk to your general ledger in real-time, you’re not spending days hunting down why things don’t tie out.
Stop the guessing game. Rule-based posting logic means transactions land in the right accounts without someone manually deciding where each one goes.
Show you what’s actually happening. Real-time dashboards that flag bottlenecks before they become problems. Imagine knowing on day two that a department hasn’t submitted their entries, not discovering it on day eight.
Create a breadcrumb trail for auditors. Every adjustment documented, every change logged. No more scrambling six months later trying to remember why you made that entry.
When your ERP does what it’s designed to do, your team shifts from data janitors to strategic advisors.
So Why Is Your Close Still Broken?
If ERPs are this powerful, why does month-end still feel like a nightmare?
The system isn’t the problem. How you’re using it is.
You’re still living in Excel. Your team reconciles accounts in spreadsheets, makes adjustments in more spreadsheets, then manually enters everything into the ERP. You’ve essentially built a parallel accounting system that defeats the entire purpose of having an ERP.
Your Chart of Accounts is a monster. Someone years ago decided you needed 47 different expense account variations. Now every close involves reconciling accounts that barely have activity and add zero analytical value.
Nobody actually owns the process. Close tasks happen “whenever someone gets to them.” There’s no clear ownership, no timeline, no accountability. Just vague expectations that it’ll all somehow come together.
Data shows up fashionably late. Sales closes their deals on the last day of the month but doesn’t process them until the fifth. Inventory counts take a week. Procurement is still approving last month’s invoices. Your close can’t start until everyone else finishes.
Everything needs a signature. Every adjustment, every reclassification, every minor entry sits in someone’s inbox waiting for approval. Meanwhile, the clock keeps ticking.
We saw all of this with a healthcare client last year. Two weeks to close. Weekend work was standard. The finance team had a running joke about “close season” like it was tax season. After we simplified their Chart of Accounts, automated their recurring entries, and got their subledgers actually integrated, they closed in five days. The CFO’s exact words: “I forgot what normal weekends felt like.”
Red Flags Your Process Is Costing You More Than You Think
You might be so used to the pain that you don’t realize how bad it is. Here are the warning signs:
The close feels like a hostage situation. You never quite know when it’ll end. Five days? Eight? Ten? Depends on who’s on vacation and whether Mercury is in retrograde.
Reconciliations eat your life. By the time you finish this month’s close, next month is already halfway done. You’re perpetually behind.
Your team spends 80% of their time finding numbers, 20% understanding them. If your senior accountants are doing data entry instead of analysis, you’re wasting serious talent.
Spreadsheets are your crutch. “The ERP can’t do that” has become your team’s motto. So you’ve built elaborate Excel workbooks that only one person understands and God help you if they leave.
Auditors keep asking the same questions. Because your documentation is scattered across emails, spreadsheets, and sticky notes, and nobody can find anything six months later.
The Fix Isn’t What You Think
Here’s what you don’t need: A new ERP. A bigger team. More overtime. What you need is to actually use what you already have.
Start small. Pick one painful part of your close (maybe it’s those manual recurring entries or a specific reconciliation that always takes forever). Fix that first. Get a win. Build momentum.
M&S meets you where you are. Our consultants assess your ERP health, pinpoint what’s holding back value, and build a practical roadmap for improvement. We focus on quick wins that build momentum and lasting habits that sustain results. No rip‑and‑replace projects. No endless timelines. Just measurable improvement that pays for itself.
Schedule an ERP Value Conversation with our team. We’ll review your current state, discuss your goals, and outline a clear plan to unlock cash, reduce stockouts, and strengthen planning.
Your ERP has the power to deliver more value. Let’s make sure it does.