Heft IQ Executive Radar · 2026-11-13
Year-End Close: Getting the P&L in Days, Not Weeks
APQC's benchmark puts the median annual close at 18 days and top performers at 10 or fewer. For multi-unit manufacturers, most of the gap is time spent assembling reports, not reviewing them.
The benchmark
APQC's research on the annual close finds a median of 18 days, with top performers at 10 days or less and slower performers at 35. Size adds time: organizations under $100 million in revenue have a median of 10 days, while those with $1 billion to $5 billion have a median of 23. For manufacturers with several business units on one ERP, much of that time goes to assembling consolidated reports rather than reviewing them.
Where the time goes
In multi-unit manufacturers, the close often waits on reports built by hand: pulling ERP exports, mapping accounts across units, reconciling intercompany balances and fixing data problems found along the way. One industrial manufacturer with four business units said its P&L took about two weeks of work every month, often including weekends, before it connected its ERP to CargoCore. Leadership's words: the P&L feature saved two weeks of work every month, including weekends.
What to do before year-end
List the reports your team rebuilds by hand each month and how long each takes. Run data-quality checks on the ERP tables behind them now, while there's time to fix problems at the source. Settle intercompany balances before the year closes. Then decide which reports can be produced continuously from the ERP, so the close is spent reviewing numbers rather than assembling them.