Financial Pros Continue Struggle with Month-End Closes

Almost 75 percent of ERP system users say it takes five or more days for a financial close, yet 85 percent say what they really want is to close the books in five days or less, according to a global survey of more than 780 such users from Excel4apps, a provider of best-in-class Excel-based reporting and data-loading software for use with Oracle, PeopleSoft and SAP. The survey results are highlighted in a new infographic and blog from the company.

In addition, 51 percent of respondents indicated they use Microsoft Excel to manage period-end close processes, but 75 percent also indicated they spend five or more hours moving data from static reports produced by their ERP system to Excel for formatting. When asked the biggest area of the close process needing improvement, automated financial reporting was tops, followed by clear definition of processes, more resources and better tools.

“ERP system users have long been frustrated by reporting tools from ERP vendors, as well as the manual import/export process to get ERP data into Excel—the application 72% of those in our survey use for financial reporting,” said Chris Meyer, CEO, Excel4apps. “Fortunately, financial reporting and upload tools like our Excel add-ins automate this process by linking directly to real-time ERP data, bypassing manual steps and providing confidence in numbers from the single source of truth.”