Enhancing Month-End Close Efficiency with AI: A Step-by-Step Guide

About the Course:

The month-end close is a critical yet often stressful process for finance teams, burdened by tight deadlines, repetitive tasks, and high stakes for accuracy. Enhancing Month-End Close Efficiency with AI: A Step-by-Step Guide is a deep-dive, practical session designed to help accounting and finance professionals modernize and streamline their close cycle using artificial intelligence, without the need for coding or a complete systems overhaul.

This hands-on guide walks you through the full month-end close process, identifying key areas where AI can be leveraged to eliminate inefficiencies, reduce errors, and free up valuable time for analysis and strategic work. You’ll learn how AI-powered tools can automate data collection, improve reconciliation accuracy, and accelerate reporting timelines.

Key takeaways from this session include:

• A step-by-step framework for applying AI to the month-end close process.
• How to use AI for automated transaction matching, journal entry suggestions, and anomaly detection.
• Integration of AI with existing accounting platforms (ERP systems, Excel, and cloud tools) to enhance, not replace, your current workflows.
• Best practices for closing checklists, approval workflows, and task tracking using intelligent automation.
• Real-world examples of companies that have reduced their close cycle from days to hours using practical AI solutions.

The session focuses on no-code and low-code tools accessible to accounting and finance teams, enabling quick wins without needing deep technical knowledge or IT support.

Whether you're a financial controller, accountant, or FP&A professional, this session equips you with a repeatable AI-based methodology to speed up your month-end close, improve compliance, and reduce burnout across the team.

By the end, you'll have a clear action plan, recommended tools, and practical templates to start transforming your close process immediately, paving the way for a faster, smarter, and more strategic finance function.

Course Objective:

• Identify bottlenecks in the current month-end close process.
• Learn how AI can assist in tasks like reconciliations and variance analysis.
• Develop a roadmap for implementing AI solutions in the close cycle. 

Who is the Target Audience?

• Accounting managers, controllers, and finance team members are involved in the close process. 

Basic Knowledge:

• Docyt: Automates reconciliations and supports continuous close processes.
• FloQast: Provides close management solutions to streamline month-end activities.
• Planful: Offers financial performance management tools to enhance the close process.