Using AI and Automation Better and Faster Period Ending Procedures

📋 Overview

For most finance teams, the first week of every month looks the same: chasing statements, reconciling accounts line by line, rebuilding the same accruals, and explaining variances under deadline pressure. Much of that work follows rules, which makes it ideal for automation, and AI now handles much of what's left, from flagging unusual transactions to drafting the first version of variance commentary. The goal isn't a close that runs itself. It's a close where people spend their time on judgment and review instead of keying and matching. This session walks through the period-end process step by step and shows where automation and AI fit into each stage. The examples come straight from the close: bank and balance sheet reconciliations that match themselves, recurring entries and accruals that post on schedule, AI that reviews month-over-month changes and suggests where to look, and draft commentary for the reporting package that a controller can edit instead of writing from scratch. You'll also see how to keep review, documentation, and audit trails intact as more of the work is automated. You'll leave with a map of your own close showing which steps to automate first and how to keep control of the result.

👥 Who Should Attend

Controllers, accounting managers, and finance professionals responsible for financial reporting and month-end operations.

🎯 Learning Objectives

• Identify the period-end tasks best suited to automation and AI
• Apply automated matching rules to speed up bank and balance sheet reconciliations
• Determine which recurring entries and accruals can be automated and what review they still require
• Use AI to analyze period-over-period changes and draft variance explanations for review
• Evaluate an automated close process for review, documentation, and audit-trail requirements

🚀 What You'll Walk Away With

• You'll build a map of your month-end steps to identify exactly which tasks to automate first.
• You'll stop matching bank and balance sheet lines by hand using automated rules.
• You'll use AI to flag unusual transactions and draft your initial variance commentary.
• You'll know which recurring entries and accruals can post on a schedule and what review they still need.
• You'll maintain audit-ready documentation and review cycles even as your processes get faster.

📚 Major Topics

1. Rethinking the close: checklists, dependencies, and what to automate
2. Reconciliations and recurring entries: matching rules and scheduled automation
3. AI for analysis: variance review, unusual items, and draft commentary
4. Staying in control: review, documentation, and audit trails

🏷️ Topics

❓ Questions

✍️ A Note from the Author

I spent years watching my teams burn their first week of the month on repetitive matching and manual data entry. I wrote this course because the technology has finally caught up to the checklist, and we should be using it. We'll look at how to stop being the engine of the close and start being the navigator instead.