Every month-end is a hated time in financial departments, why is this? Do they really only work 1 week a month, or is everything just left till the last minute? I think there’s a number of sides to this story, Finance…Sales…the rest of the business…and the real one.

Finance generally have a month-long fight to get all information in for balancing, reporting, and the occasional question from upper management. Sales works on leads, push deals, is under permanent pressure to perform, and still manage to close deals 17:00 on the last day of the month.

Nobody else really knows what the month-end fuss is about, so let’s try and put some of it into perspective, or at least into words that makes more sense to the rest of the business.

1. Balance Debtors and Creditors
   • Customers (Debtors) are the only real asset a business has. Simple math, no customers…no business.
   • Making sure what was sold to customers, what was paid, and what is owed is a process that needs attention throughout the month, but needs finalization at month end to calculate payment terms, possible discounts, rebates, and in some instances interest.
   • Suppliers are exactly the reverse, what we bought and what is our liability, not always easy to have all the documentation from them on time.
2. Balance Stock /Inventory
   • Probably the second most important asset we have as a business. This is unfortunately sometimes not treated with the respect it deserves and this is where a business starts losing money.
   • Think about it, stock is cash, we balance our bank account daily, but tend to not feel the same about inventory – the one thing that can walk out the door. You wouldn’t leave your bank card with the pin next to the ATM, would you?
3. Bank Reconciliation
   • Now that we mentioned it, the bank/cashflow is pretty big in the greater scheme of things
   • Making sure we’ve captured every bit of movement on our financial system helps in all aspects of balancing, not just the bank, but also point #1 above. Nothing worse than sending a statement of money owed to a customer that already paid you.
4. Reporting
   • Turnover
   • Gross Profit
   • Cashflow
   • Month-end reports

Once all the balancing is done, the fun starts. Everybody wants the numbers, but nobody wants it in the same format. A proper reporting/BI tool is the only thing to keep you sane and ensure that ridiculously short month-end deadlines are met, and everyone gets the reports they want. The value of a reporting tool is sometimes overlooked, and people end up spending days re-formatting reports that should be, dare I say it, a push of a button.

Month ends may not be fun, but nobody can dispute their necessity. I’ll leave you with these wise words (no, I really don’t know who said it):

“Turnover is vanity, Profit is sanity, Cashflow is reality”

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