The Challenge:
Our client’s parent company required financial reporting to be submitted by the third business day after month-end. However, the existing close process spanned 15 days, with several critical activities occurring well beyond the third day. Without major process changes, meeting the reporting deadline was not feasible.
The Solution:
Eliassen Group facilitated a full-day workshop to map all monthly close deliverables. We challenged the client’s management team to rethink task timing and ownership to enable a three-day close. As a result, non-essential tasks were shifted outside of the close window, and a new, streamlined, role-specific month-end close checklist was developed to support the revised timeline.
The Result:
The client successfully aligned its close process with corporate reporting deadlines, achieving on-time financial reporting after just three cycles of the new approach. Increased cross-functional visibility improved coordination and accountability. The workshop not only addressed immediate challenges, but uncovered further optimization opportunities, with the content used to cross-train staff and enhance awareness of interdependencies across functions.
