There’s another step to making your month end process faster and simpler.  That next step is to streamline some of the journal entries.

Take a look at the journal entries that you have with the month end closing process.  Which of these journal entries could be more automated?

For example, one area could be with payroll.  There could be several entries that feed off a payroll number, such as:

1.  Payroll taxes.

2.  Medical insurance.

3.  Other fringes.

4.  Unemployment taxes.

5.  Payroll allocations.

All these entries could be linked to a particular payroll number.  So, what you could do is setup a spreadsheet where the payroll numbers are either downloaded or input from the payroll for the month or the last payroll of the period, depending upon which triggered the entry.  This can then be used as a base for all the other entries in the payroll area.  From there, you could setup another sheet that would have all these other payroll entries and set them up to be automatically calculated from the payroll numbers that were setup on the input sheet.

The beauty is now a lot of journal entries are more automatically calculated.  You not only save the time, but you also save accuracy by making these consistent from month to month.

Yet, there’s another benefit too.  With more automated, you can also look at it from another angle.  What work can be pushed down to a lower level?  What could be done by an accountant rather than the controller?

We mentioned payroll as one example, but there could be others, such as depreciation, prepaid amortization, expense accruals, just to name a few. 

So, take the next step with your month end accounting.  See how you can automate the entries and see how you can push some down to as low a level as possible on the accounting staff.