Best Practices for a Quicker Financial Close

Learn how top performing companies close their books each month in less than five days.

Created by : Rated :4.2 62979 views

Last Updated: 2023-03-27 08:03:29 English Course Type: Self Learning

Identify the factors that slow down your financial close process.
Develop strategies for speeding up the close process.
Develop a plan for implementing the business process improvement addressing the change management issues.

The pressure on the finance function has never been higher to deliver financial results as soon as possible after the period. Managers, analysts, Boards, and investors are digesting market information in real time and are beginning to expect the same of financial results. To meet these high expectations, the CFO and controller need to find ways to speed up their financial close processes to report the financial results before they become perceived as old news in the new world. In this course, Blair Cook, a many-time CFO, will explore ideas for shortening the financial close process. Leading companies have found ways to close their books in as little as one day and see the benefit of almost real-time analysis (in addition to the actual period financial data) that can be performed with a shorter close.

Awareness of accounting principles.
Good grasp of the financial close process.

Accounting practitioners, supervisors, managers, controllers, and advisors.

Section 1 : Welcome to the Course! 1 Lectures 00:05:16
Lecture 1 :
Welcome to the Course! Preview
Iâ€™ll go over the broad topics weâ€™ll cover in the course, Iâ€™ll also touch on why the course will help you, and what youâ€™ll get out of it once youâ€™ve completed it.
Section 2 : Bottlenecks in the close process. 1 Lectures 00:04:56
Lecture 1 :
Bottlenecks in the close process.
In this lesson, I will identify common areas that lead to inefficiency in the financial close process. Identifying these weaknesses is the first step.
Section 3 : Ideas for the fast close. 1 Lectures 00:17:58
Lecture 1 :
Ideas for the fast close.
In this lesson, I will give you a number of strategies you can use to speed up your close process. Take these ideas to your next planning meeting to get started.
Section 4 : Making it happen. 1 Lectures 00:18:03
Lecture 1 :
Making it happen.
In the lesson, letâ€™s be frank, changing the close process is going to change how our accounting team (and others across the organization) do things. So Iâ€™m going to talk about using a change management approach to getting the necessary changes implemented and have them stay implemented.
Section 5 : Conclusions. 1 Lectures 00:03:42
Lecture 1 :
Conclusions.
Letâ€™s just wrap up what weâ€™ve learned and send you on your way.

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Blair Cook,

476791 Course Views

16 Courses

Blair is a many-time corporate director, CFO, author, speaker, educator, innovator, and thought leader. His educational videos of accounting and finance have million of views on YouTube. He has keynoted and spoken at national conferences from New York to Toronto. Along with Jen, he co-hosts CPA Canadaâ€™s podcast series â€œCPA Success Podcast.â€ He works with real businesses to experiment with theories and practices developed both in the academic and real world. He then shares these experiences and stories with others of what works, what doesnâ€™t, and what was learned. He is the author of The Illiterate Executive: An Executiveâ€™s Handbook for Mastering Financial Acumen.