Cycle Time in Days to Perform the Annual Close at the Site Level

The annual close comes during one of the heaviest workload periods of the year for accountants, as month-end, quarter-end, and year-end closing processes converge in a perfect storm that takes time and energy away from activities that support daily operations. However, the best accounting teams don’t wait until the end of the year to begin the annual close—they actually perform closing activities throughout the year. In this article, APQC reviews cross-industry data on cycle times for the annual close and identifies pre-closing activities that can help to shrink your cycle time for this measure.