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Mid-to-Large Enterprises with Complex Financials
Companies managing high volumes of transactions, multiple systems, or detailed reporting requirements gain efficiency and control through automation.
Financial Close Automation: The Complete CFO’s Guide
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For many finance teams, month-end close is a recurring cycle of long hours, manual reconciliations, and high-stress reporting deadlines. Despite advances in technology, too many organizations still rely on spreadsheets, disconnected systems, and labor-intensive processes to complete their financial close.
The result?
Delays, errors, and a team that’s constantly focused on the past—just trying to get the numbers right—instead of delivering timely insights that support the future.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Financial close automation offers more than just speed. It brings accuracy, control, and the ability to shift finance from reactive to strategic.
In this guide, you’ll learn:
- What financial close automation is (and what it isn’t)
- How it transforms finance beyond just faster closes
- What steps to take to make it work for your team
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What Is Financial Close Automation?
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Financial close automation is the use of technology to streamline and standardize the processes involved in closing the books at period-end. It reduces manual effort, improves accuracy, and accelerates the timeline for producing financial statements and reports.
Key tasks automated by financial close solutions include:
- Account Reconciliation: Automatically matches and validates balances across systems, flagging discrepancies for review.
- Journal Entry Management: Automates recurring entries, approvals, and validation rules to ensure compliance and consistency.
- Financial Reporting: Generates standardized reports directly from integrated data sources, reducing time spent on manual compilation.
- Review and Sign-Off Workflows: Enables structured, auditable workflows for approvals, escalations, and documentation.
- ERP and Data Integration: Connects directly to ERP systems and other financial data sources to provide a unified, real-time view of accounts.
Financial close automation is more than a tool—it’s a shift from manual, error-prone processes to a controlled, efficient, and transparent approach to closing the books.
Start Building the System Your Finance Team Deserves
Let’s talk about the challenges holding you back—and how we can solve them together.
Core Features of Financial Close Automation Tools
The right automation tool brings together key capabilities that streamline every step of the close process. Here’s what to look for when evaluating financial close solutions:
Reconciliation Management: Automatically matches account balances, flags discrepancies, and provides clear exception tracking for faster resolution.
Journal Entry Automation: Supports pre-approved, rule-based journal entries, with validation workflows to ensure accuracy and compliance.
Workflow & Task Management: Organizes close tasks across teams with visibility into status, dependencies, and bottlenecks—keeping the process on track.
Audit Trail & Compliance Controls: Tracks every action, approval, and adjustment for full transparency. Ensures your close is always audit-ready.
ERP Integration & Data Sync: Connects directly to your ERP and other financial systems, syncing data in real time to reduce manual imports and ensure consistency.
Real-Time Reporting: Delivers up-to-date dashboards and close status reports, helping finance leaders monitor progress and act on insights quickly.
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Common Myths About Financial Close Automation
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Financial close automation is often misunderstood. Let’s clear up a few common myths that can hold organizations back from making meaningful progress.
“It’s too expensive for us.”
While enterprise-scale solutions can be significant investments, many automation tools are modular and scalable, allowing mid-sized companies to start small and expand over time. The cost of manual errors, delays, and inefficiencies often outweighs the investment in automation.
“Automation will replace finance jobs.”
Automation removes repetitive, low-value tasks—not people. It frees finance teams to focus on analysis, strategy, and business leadership. Most organizations find their teams are more engaged post-automation because they’re doing higher-impact work.
“Our systems are too old to automate.”
Modern automation platforms are designed to integrate with legacy systems. Through APIs and data connectors, even older ERP environments can benefit from real-time syncing, automated reconciliations, and reporting improvements.
Start Building the System Your Finance Team Deserves
Let’s talk about the challenges holding you back—and how we can solve them together.
Nova Advisory: Redefining the Close with Smart, Scalable Automation
At Nova Advisory, we bring more than tools—we bring transformation. As a OneStream Diamond Partner with over 200 successful projects, we help finance teams streamline close cycles, improve accuracy, and free up time for strategic work.
Here’s how we help clients close faster and smarter:
- Finance-Led Strategy: We align automation with your real-world close processes, team structure, and compliance requirements—not just your software architecture.
- Deep OneStream Expertise: From journal entry automation to real-time dashboards, we implement purpose-built solutions on the industry's most trusted CPM platform.
- Proven Client Impact: Clients experience more efficient close cycles, greater transparency, and stronger internal controls—with less manual effort and fewer reporting delays.
- Post-Go-Live Support: Through the SMART program, Nova Advisory provides ongoing optimization, training, and administration so the platform evolves with your business.
Automation should simplify the close—not add complexity. That’s where Nova Advisory excels.
Listen to The CPM Customer Success Podcast
For Finance Leaders Ready to Move Forward
CPM Customer Success, hosted by Nova Advisory’s Andy Smetana, is your guide to what’s possible. Each episode features real finance leaders sharing how they left behind outdated processes, overcame complexity, and took control of their performance management with OneStream.
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