Financial closure is critical for businesses to complete in a timely manner for various financial reporting purposes, helping with strategic and operational decision-making. The process, however, could be slowed down by many challenges along the road, such as the closure checklist's extensive nature, complex regulatory requirements, and handling data from multiple systems. Closing books involves reviewing account balances and lowering or zeroing out temporary accounts before the accounting cycle ends.
The good news is that financial closing software options are available that can effectively automate the execution and completion of the checklist with little to no manual involvement. Finance teams will be able to concentrate on current, more relevant issues as a result. Using this, financial reports are created to demonstrate the company's financial status periodically. Many companies still close the books manually, which can result in missed activities, data entry errors, and the likelihood of misstatement till the end, but automated financial close delivers transparency and predictability, alleviates frustration, saves time, and enhances efficiency. It also assists in completing audit preparation with all reconciliation data, supporting documentation, task assignments, and offering progress monitoring tools.

BlackLine

Advantages

• Recording the journal is relatively straightforward, and it is automatically placed in the general ledger at predetermined points in time. It also offers a file repository where one can attach documents, invoices, and other files for the entire team to access. It allocates and tracks the tasks given to the work team in an easy to monitor UI.
• Workflow notifications eliminate the need to constantly check to see if reconciliations are completed and ready for approval. This application allows key management teams to view closed checklist status, analytics, and pending items from past periods. Tasks, reconciliations, and variance analysis are all centralized. It is easy to examine the current state and track completeness and timeliness.
• The dashboard offers a snapshot of the current status of the team's tasks and reconciliations.
• It enables global SOX compliance by allowing a consistent method to balance sheet account preparation and electronic review/approval.

Disadvantages:

• Since the system is not totally hosted on the cloud, it consumes space on the computers, which may be disadvantageous to companies adopting cloud.
• Non-admin users cannot customize.
• When you certify a task or reconciliation, it does not immediately remove it from your to-do list; you must actively reload that module.
• It's difficult to modify journal entries because if one element changes, the journal has to be redone. You cannot insert a line on entries once they have been created; they are difficult to rearrange.
• When you delete a schedule by accident, you can't merely go back to the browser and restore it. It forces you to re-upload it.
• The integration of Blackline with ERP is a little challenging.
• Employee training is time-consuming.

FloQast is used by over 300 companies, the majority of which have 1000-5000 employees and $10M-$50M in revenue.

Advantages -

• FloQast is simple to use and deploy.
• Due date tracking features inform employees and team leaders about how close the assigned task is to completion.
• It has helped us to simply track our progress and ensure that all needed activities are completed. We can readily identify bottlenecks and free up resources as needed to effectively manage the closing.
• Floqast provides multiple ways to look into data within the system, allowing you to filter to your specific requirements. It also provides the option to link documents to distinct account numbers, making monthly reconciliation much easier to complete. It also generates P&L variance and budget vs. actual review reports.
• It supports the import and export of Excel files into ERP systems such as Sage Intacct. It keeps track of our review notes and their status, so we can have everything related to our close in one location.
• It is simple to identify where the team is in the closing process, and it reduces the need to manually remind everyone of their pending list of items.

Disadvantages -

• It may take a while for changes to the GL to be reflected in the reconciliation system, and the OneDrive folders may also take some time to update.
• The dashboard does not display outstanding flux items.
• It does not appear to automatically refresh data.
• It only alerts an account that is out of balance if the variance is greater than a certain amount, but it does not notify if an account has been reconciled and signed off on.
• The flux analysis tool is complicated. It is necessary to update the flux with Excel from time to time.
• The price is a little high for small businesses or startups. It is more expensive than the entire accounting technology stack (i.e. QuickBooks, Bill.com, Gusto, Expensify, etc.).

Workiva is used by over 1,000 companies, the majority of which have more than 1000 employees and more than $1 billion in revenue.

Advantages - -

• Good in terms of streamlined external reporting and the SOX program
• The Workiva platform supports financial planning and bookkeeping at the end of each quarter. The program automates financial reporting by analyzing all financial data such as expenditures and revenue.
• Given that many of Workiva's capabilities operate similarly to Excel and Word, accountants will find it straightforward to learn the software.
• Using Workiva, several users can collaborate in real-time on a single document and create contextual ties between relevant files to maintain data integrity.
• Intuitive and user friendly.
• The best feature is data connectivity, which allows to leverage data from several different systems across the big business, and multiple data pipelines feed data into a single location for processing.
• The data is well connected to the source, ensuring that you always have the most recent and single source of truth for your data.

Disadvantages - -

• Some Excel functions and formats are not supported.
• The integration of XBRL is not user friendly.
• Sending revisions to several documents and sheets can cause issues, requiring a refresh of web pages.
• There is also an initial learning curve for how to use the software, particularly document formatting, which can be challenging.
• The tool has a cost, and any add-ons or other services will cost more.

Prophix is used by 1,320 firms, the majority of which have 1,000-5,000 people and $10M-50M in sales.

Advantages - -

• Prophix is simple to administer, flexible to use, and intuitive for both administrators and end users.
• It enables you to create professional-looking reusable templates with little to no training.
• Prophix has made providing month-end financial statements and completing the yearly planning process easier.
• The technology connects seamlessly with several other ERP systems, and the deployment was simple.
• The report builder is called template studio; it is an Excel-style report builder that is simple and straightforward to use while also allowing you to generate quite complex templates.
• The helpdesk responds quickly, and the analysts are really knowledgeable.

Disadvantages --

• Data integration to Client servers was inconsistent, and it takes multiple attempts to get it right.
• It is a complex and robust program that requires time to properly understand. Integration of data with Sage MAS 500 is not always effective.
• Trying to grasp Prophix's more advanced functions is a little more difficult.
• Some formulas are hard to construct and are not as versatile as Excel.
• Having difficulty integrating actuals from Workday to Prophix.

Automation of Financial Close will provide you with increased and real-time visibility into the Record to Report (R2R) process, allowing you to obtain actual awareness into potential bottlenecks and high-risk areas and allowing you to prioritize high-risk tasks first before they adversely impact the business. Furthermore, this insight will allow you to discover what improvements need to be done in the coming period, as well as which employees have completed specific tasks and whose actions are outstanding. It also improves business compliance by creating a thorough audit trail, allowing internal and external audits to have a complete understanding of workflow, priorities, and emerging risks.