Finance Automation: Closing the Books in Days, Not Weeks

The monthly close process is a recurring ordeal for finance teams. What should be a routine operational task becomes a multi-week marathon of reconciliations, adjustments, and manual data wrangling. ODE's Finance Automation module transforms the close from weeks to days.

The Close Process Problem

CFO surveys consistently rank 'close process efficiency' as a top priority, yet the average close still takes 6-8 days for mid-market companies and 10+ days for enterprises. The culprit isn't lack of effort — it's fragmented systems, manual reconciliations, and exception handling that consumes skilled accountants' time.

Continuous Accounting with ODE

The traditional approach waits until month-end to reconcile. ODE enables continuous accounting — transactions are matched, reconciled, and validated as they occur. When the calendar flips, the close is already 80% complete.

Intelligent Reconciliation

ODE's AI performs three-way matching across bank statements, GL entries, and sub-ledgers automatically. Machine learning models learn your organization's patterns, handling variations in descriptions, timing differences, and common exceptions without human intervention. Only true anomalies require review.

Automated Journal Entries

Standard adjusting entries — accruals, deferrals, allocations — follow predictable patterns. ODE automates these entries based on configurable rules, with AI suggestions for amounts based on historical patterns and current data. Accountants review and approve rather than prepare from scratch.

Real-Time Close Dashboard

Finance leaders get real-time visibility into close progress. See which entities are complete, where blockers exist, and which reconciliations are pending. Drill down into specific issues and track resolution in real-time. No more status meetings to understand where things stand.

The Strategic CFO

When close automation frees your team from manual drudgery, they can focus on what matters: analysis, forecasting, and strategic partnership with the business. ODE customers report that their finance teams spend 40% more time on value-added analysis after automation.

Results That Matter

Organizations using ODE's Finance Automation report: 60% reduction in close time, 75% decrease in manual reconciliation effort, 90% reduction in close-related errors, and significantly improved work-life balance for finance teams.