Run the month-end close as one project
Month-end, and three people hold three versions of the same reconciliation. On M‑Files the close runs as one project: a checklist with an owner and a date per task, and the working papers beside them. It sits on top of your ledger and ERP, where the matching stays.
What this solution covers
Month-end close software comes in two kinds. One matches transactions inside the ledger. This is the other kind: the checklist, the working papers and the record of who finished what and when, on M‑Files.
The checklist and its working papers
Every task of the close, created from a template for each company, with an owner, a date and a reminder before it, and the Word and Excel files it produces filed under it with their versions.
Your ledger keeps the figures
Postings, matching and the trial balance stay in your ERP. M‑Files can keep lists such as companies and periods in sync with it, and the result of a reconciliation is a working paper filed under its task.
From the first task to a closed month
With several companies in several countries, the reconciliations have to happen in a set order, so the schedule matters. Year-end runs the same way.
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Start the period from a template
Start the project for the period, and its tasks are created from a template, one checklist per company.
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Give each task to the right person
Most people in finance specialise. Each task goes to someone with the skills for it, with its own date in the schedule and a reminder before the deadline.
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Create the working papers
Each period's working papers start from your Word and Excel templates or from last period's files, with the company and the period filled in from the task.
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Follow the work against the schedule
See which working papers are finished, and how the tasks are keeping to the schedule.
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The CFO sees where the close stands
The controller, the CFO and the others who need it see the status of the whole close in a view of their own. With CtrlPortals from our development partner CtrlDocs, the same tasks show as a board or as a plan with a line for today.
Everyone works on the same files
- One person edits at a time — Check a document out and no one can overwrite it until you check it back in.
- Go back to an earlier version — M‑Files keeps every version. When a reconciliation has to be redone, the earlier one is still there.
- The same process in every company — Standard workflows manage the close the same way in each company and each period.
- Find a document by country or company — Search by country, region, company or status, or on the words inside the document.
- Your own tasks on your home screen — Each employee sees their own tasks, and how the related ones are coming along.
- Work in Word and Excel as usual — Most of the close is done in Word and Excel. The files open, edit and save straight into M‑Files.
Year-end and the audit pack, the same way
Year-end runs as the same project with a longer checklist. The audit pack is what the vault already holds about the year, found in one search.
Approved versions
A working paper is reviewed and approved in a workflow before the task closes. The approved version is what opens, and the drafts sit behind it in the version history.
Who did what and when
The event log records each workflow step, change and download with the time and the user. Filter it to the period and export it for the auditor.
One search per question
Search by company, period, task or the words in a working paper, and export the documents as they are or as PDF.