Financial Close Management Software: The Best for 2024 and How They Drive Efficiency

The month-end close process is essential to a company’s financial health, budgeting, and forecasting. But for many, it can be a weeks-long process of manual account reconciliations and financial consolidations that limit the strategic potential of the accounting and finance functions.

Historically, completing the month-end close and record-to-report processes has been unnecessarily long and complex due to a lack of efficient procedures and automation. Without the help of automation to simplify data management and streamline the process, accounting and finance teams spend unnecessary time just getting their hands on the data they need.

But, with the right financial close software, you can get the kind of dependable, real-time information you need to proactively make the strategic financial decisions that move your business forward.

10 Best Financial Close Software Solutions in 2024 (and Beyond)

Financial close management software helps the month-end close process move faster and more efficiently. Instead of delivering stale financial reports three weeks into the following month, the right software empowers accountants to get income statements, balance sheets, cash flow statements, and audit trails out the door when the data is as fresh as possible. A small accounting team (or a single accountant) can use month-end close software to help manage the repetitive process of gathering, reviewing, and conforming data accurately to get the job done in days instead of weeks.

Financial close software helps you get clean data, well-managed books, transaction matching, and accurate journal entries to ensure everything is allocated, tracked, and reported correctly. With accurate account reconciliation, financials, and board reports, your financial storytelling is more complete, so you can fully assess what’s working and what’s not.

But how do you find the best financial close software solution for your business? That depends on the size and stage of your business, as well as the types of tools you’re looking for to support specific business processes. We’ve provided our favorite tools for companies based on their needs and growth stage below:

Financial Close Software for Mid-Sized & Enterprise Companies

The following companies provide established, dedicated financial close management software. In most cases, their software is designed to be used by mature accounting functions in mid-size or enterprise businesses.

FloQast

FloQast offers a cloud-based accounting workflow automation designed by accountants for accountants to integrate with your ERP, general ledger, Excel spreadsheets, and other tools to close books faster. While this software caters to some of the largest companies in the world, smaller, high-growth companies can also take advantage of its well-known ease of use. However, some users note that it is somewhat costly and can be slow.

BlackLine

BlackLine’s cloud-based software automates accounting workflow with a focus on streamlining financial reporting and providing a central, secure workspace. BlackLine also offers SAP solutions to help provide a holistic view of the business’s financial health. Some users say that setup can be difficult and the software can be confusing. This platform is used almost exclusively by enterprise-level companies.

Workiva

Workiva’s mission is to power transparent financial reporting with a consistent format, streamlined processes, and connection between data and teams. Another software recognized as easy to use compared to other tools that serve the largest enterprises in the world. Some users report that viewing attachments and lack of drag and drop can be problematic.

OneStream

Unlike other platforms on this list, OneStream extends its services beyond financial close and consolidation. It’s a more holistic corporate performance management (CPM) platform that also offers planning, reporting, and analytics features.

Financial Close Software for Startups & Early-Stage Businesses

Upstart financial close management software is designed for startups or other earlier-stage businesses to help accounting teams automate their month-end close process, so they close faster each month. This accounting software caters to startups’ specific accounting and finance needs:

Numeric

Created for startups and enterprise businesses alike, Numeric was designed with speed, precision, and control in mind. This software enables accounting teams to close faster and supports improved collaboration, visibility, and control across departments.

NixSheets

NixSheets is an accounting workflow and automation platform for companies that have outgrown ERPs like QuickBooks but don’t want the potential headache of enterprise-focused systems. NixSheets is designed to improve the speed and efficiency of your monthly close cycle with the help of automated, schedule-based workflows.

Avise

Created from the belief that finance teams deserve better than insufficient and frustrating ERPs, Avise centralizes accounting processes by automating the manual work of closing tasks. This allows finance and accounting teams to focus on being strategic partners within the business.

Supporting Financial Close Software Tools

While great financial close software can radically change the month-end close process for a business, most businesses require additional tools in their tech stack to further optimize finance and accounting workflows.

The following platforms can help support solid month-end close software and make various accounting and finance processes significantly faster, more efficient, and more effective. Automating your time-consuming processes wherever possible helps ensure your data is accurate and trustworthy while freeing you up to focus on more strategic work. It also ensures you’re able to get the right information into the right hands faster to support more data-driven decision-making across the business.

Accrualify

This purchase order management solution allows businesses to simplify their purchase order request and approval process, automating a procedure that can otherwise slow the month-end close process.

Chargebee RevRec

ChargeBee RevRec is automated revenue recognition software that complies with ASC 606 and IFRS 15 to provide accurate, auditable transaction data. This platform syncs revenue and cash flow to minimize human error and unburden finance teams, helping to streamline month-end close processes.

Mosaic

A Strategic Finance Platform designed to automate data gathering, sorting, and reporting from all of your systems of record to provide the integrated data and real-time analytics finance teams need to simplify the month-end close process. Integrating and automating your data analytics with Mosaic can help cut your month-end close down from weeks to days.

How Does Financial Close Management Software Help SaaS Businesses?

Financial close software helps SaaS businesses automate the most time-consuming procedures required for a month-end close process. Without financial close automation and a well-managed month-end close process, companies can spend up to three weeks completing that process.

Sal Abdullah, Founder and CEO of NixSheets, acknowledges that it’s pretty common for it to take 15 to 20 days to understand how a business has done in the previous month. But, he says, “By that time, you’ve lost the ability to make a positive impact on the current period in any substantial way.”

And if it’s taking 15 to 20 days to find out how your company is doing financially, Temi Vasco, Controller at Gem, points out, you get too much information too late. If you need to change what you’re doing but don’t find that out for three weeks, she says, “The error has now become embedded in your process.” And those are what Abdullah calls the table stakes involved in the month-end close process.

Financial close software solves these problems by allowing accounting and finance to step back and see the flow of data across the business. This beneficial CFO software helps organize the chaos of data collection from various data sources and analysis, making it easier to see how all the information and technology fits together.

Standardized Processes Reduce Errors and Wait Time

SaaS companies need to be agile, and they need to be able to make strategic decisions and base forecasting on data-driven information. And your financial reports don’t really help you if you get them three weeks down the line because you needed to make any corrections three weeks ago.

Month-end close software and other supporting finance software (such as budgeting software) help SaaS companies fine-tune the month-end close process so it’s significantly shorter and more efficient. An established month-end close checklist and plan, supported by the right software tools, keep things succinct and organized. There’s less room for human error and mismanaged processes, and process automation ensures the information you get is correct and easily accessed.

Improved Accuracy and Better Visibility

The result of a better, more streamlined process? Access to accurate information means that business leaders can make the best strategic business decisions — and they can make those decisions sooner. Amy Garefis, Chief Accounting Officer at ZipRecruiter, notes that the right financial close software also reduces the risks associated with errors, so your processes are as bulletproof as possible. As simple as it sounds, she says, tackling your biggest pain points and risks with your automation saves you “hundreds of hours in stress and organization.”

Additionally, automating more of the financial close process makes more space for collaboration, which helps leaders across departments see the bigger financial picture. That means that departments are no longer operating in silos and making decisions based on partial information. Instead, everyone has faster access to the right information to get the entire financial story.

Cut Your Financial Close Time in Half with Mosaic

Customizing your month-end close process relies on the right financial close software for your business and the right supporting software in your tech stack to help refine your financial close process further. Finding areas for automation to help reduce the time finance and accounting have to spend on getting and analyzing the necessary data makes a world of difference. But the best way to do that is to find a way to integrate cross-departmental data accurately so you can get to it quickly and consistently.

Mosaic is a financial automation solution that helps businesses integrate and access financial data in real time from separate source systems across the business. No matter what your month-end close process looks like, Mosaic offers an end-to-end solution that ensures your data accuracy and integrity with automation that helps you look forward, not back. In tandem with your month-end close software, Mosaic’s integration of data from all your systems of record streamlines your financial close process and visualizes it with user-friendly dashboards, cutting it down to a matter of days instead of weeks.

Rather than getting bogged down with data collection, task management, and the process of creating financial statements, you’ll have more time to collaborate across departments and dive deep into metrics. Finance and accounting can then serve a more strategic role, partnering with business leaders to help support strategic decision-making and agile financial planning to help the business grow.

Learn more about the month-end close process, and use that information to help you choose the right financial close software for your SaaS business. Then request a personalized demo to discover how Mosaic helps FP&A and accounting teams work more efficiently and take the month-end close process down to just a matter of days.