How Embedded AI Helps Finance Teams Close the Books Faster

Close The Books Faster: How AI Accounting Software Empowers Finance Teams

According to the global analyst firm Gartner, a 30% faster financial close is possible by 2028 for businesses that do one thing: utilize a cloud-based ERP solution with embedded AI assistants.

In a press release outlining this business-altering prediction, Mike Helsel, Senior Director, Research in the Gartner Finance practice, said “Cloud ERP finance applications will deliver additional automation, insight, and efficiency to finance functions in the near future by integrating machine learning, GenAI, and AI agents.”

Today, we’ll explore how AI accounting software within a modern ERP delivers these benefits — and why you don’t have to wait until 2028 to make financial close automation work for you.

What is an AI-Powered Financial Close?

As you know, the complex month-end financial close accounting process involves a slew of tasks, from matching accounts and transactions and making journal entries to reviewing accounts payable and receivable balances and finding and fixing any discrepancies. The information compiled during the process is utilized to create financial statements (e.g., balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement), which stakeholders use to assess a business’s current financial position and to determine their next financial steps.

A financial close via embedded AI accomplishes the same goal, but instead of relying solely on manual processes and human effort, AI and automation streamline each task as well as identify patterns and surface exceptions. Together, they reduce the time and resource burden financial professionals relying on traditional month-end close processes shoulder every month.

Why Traditional Month-End Close Processes Take So Long

Traditional month-end close using basic or legacy business management solutions requires hours spent on gathering information from disconnected systems and spreadsheets. Once the data is compiled, an individual or a team must enter the data manually into the accounting software. Team members must then reconcile the information between the systems so that any existing discrepancies or anomalies can be detected and corrected.

Whether a single or multi-entity business, the close process is complex and will continue to grow in complexity while stifling productivity and threatening accuracy as businesses manage, adjust, and allocate financial information via people rather than with technology designed specifically for that purpose.

How Acumatica Helps Finance Teams Accelerate the Close

Borrowing from a famous saying: “To err is human; to reconcile the month-end is divine intervention.” In this case, divine intervention is an AI-powered Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution, like Acumatica Cloud ERP.

Acumatica, with its advanced financial management software, centralizes your business data, replacing error-filled spreadsheets and siloed information by connecting financial and operational data in one place and creating a single source of truth. Integrated systems provide access to accurate numbers in real time — every single day of the month.

Rather than being an exercise in futility, month-end close becomes one of effectiveness.

Reduce Manual Entry

Automated transaction entries eliminate the need to manually track, record, and post financial data. When an order, invoice, expense receipt, or vendor payment is entered using Acumatica’s AI-centered document recognition, the information is populated to the proper accounts across departments, giving businesses back time and reducing manual entry errors.

Automate Bank Reconciliation

Automated bank reconciliation includes bank feeds that synchronize bank data with cash management and smart-matching features that match daily transactions to active invoices, expenses, and general ledger entries. Automated financial workflows help ensure balances, bank transactions, transfers, and reconciliations are accurate.

AI Accounting Anomaly Detection: Identify Unusual Transactions Earlier

With AI Anomaly Detection via Acumatica’s advanced reporting, dashboards, and business intelligence software, businesses are alerted to unusual patterns or trends driven by an AI-based understanding of their typical transactions and history. Severity levels, from normal to medium to significant, allow team members to assess each risk that arises and make decisions from an informed perspective.

Monitor Financial Data in Real Time

Evaluating live financial data powered by an intelligent system versus discovering errors at or after month-end is the difference between being a proactive and a reactive business. Proactive businesses see trouble coming with time to act while reactive businesses scramble to fix a potentially expensive problem.

“Most financial crises don’t announce themselves,” writes Acumatica’s Ovais Muhammad, Senior Product Manager, Product Management, in a recent post. “A late payment here, an unexpected cost there, a pricing error that slips past review. None of these feel urgent and may even pass unnoticed on the day it happens. But they can compound. By the time these alarming numbers appear on a month-end report, the problem has already cost you.”

Why Embedded AI Matters

Of course, how your AI  ERP is provided can impact how well it helps your finance teams improve their month-end close processes. There’s AI that’s bolted on and AI that’s built in. The difference matters.

In a recent post, Acumatica’s Omar Ghazi explains that a general-purpose AI tool connected to an ERP solution can summarize content, answer questions without deep system context, and pull surface-level data on request. In comparison, building AI into the ERP allows you to go deeper, enabling you to design the AI around the “data model, the workflow logic, and the relationships that give ERP data its meaning.”

The distinction sits between the AI knowing about your ERP and knowing your ERP. This is what that looks like for Acumatica users.

“Acumatica, with our AI-first product strategy, is embedding practical, secure, and scalable AI into our ERP technology,” Omar writes. “Our approach is not to bolt on AI tools and capabilities to outdated ERP systems, but to build these capabilities into the workflows of business management technology so it works seamlessly with your business processes. Our AI Assistant operates directly within the ERP, with access to live workflow state, entity relationships, and the system context that makes data meaningful. That context is what allows it to answer operational questions reliably, not just surface the data behind them.”

How to Measure Financial Close Improvement

You understand how month-end close works for finance teams that use AI for accounting (and those who don’t), but how do you measure how well an AI-powered ERP solution improves the process?

Here are a few KPIs that can help:

• Days to Close: The number of days it takes your finance team to close out the month. Compare manual and automated processing times to get a clear picture of how much improvement has been made.
• Reconciliation Completion Rate: The percentage of assigned financial account reconciliations that are finished and signed off on by the month-end deadline using the formula (Completed Reconciliations/Total Reconciliations Due) x 100. The higher the percentage, the higher your completion rate.
• Post-Close Adjustments: The number of accounting entries you need to make after the completion of the month-end close (e.g., late invoices, miscalculations, audit fixes). Fewer after-the-fact entries indicate greater pre-close accuracy.
• Exception Resolution: The amount of financial discrepancies discovered before financial reports are finalized. Finding less discrepancies as well as fixing the few you find quickly prevents delays and improves accuracy.

Moving Toward a Faster, More Continuous Close

As Gartner points out, a cloud-based ERP solution with embedded AI can make a significant difference in the time you spend on your month-end close. Automated, intelligent processes lead to fast, efficient, and accurate financial reporting, which ultimately empowers you to focus your attention on business-growing initiatives.

For customer Storm Smart, Acumatica’s automated accounting workflows changed everything. The team, which previously operated on 15 separate applications, saved 20 hours of weekly manual entry and dropped their monthly close from 10 business days to three, a 70% improvement.

“Acumatica has truly transformed the way our company works,” says Jennifer Pellechio, Director of IT. “We’ve tailored the platform to integrate seamlessly with our CRM and CPQ systems, making the ERP solution our ultimate source of truth. It’s incredibly easy to use and ensures business continuity with its collaborative and flexible nature. Real-time data access has drastically improved our efficiency and decision-making.”

Ready to transform your month-end close and your business? Contact us today to get started.