A Controller’s Guide to Closing Faster

“When will the numbers be ready?” Every controller hears it, from the board, the CFO, and FP&A. When the close runs long, leadership plans on estimates and your team spends the first half of every month catching up.

This guide breaks a faster, more accurate close into six practical steps, drawn from accounting teams at Chipotle, Gong, Cricut, Equinox, and more. Each step covers why it matters, how to put it into practice, and how teams are already doing it.

We share how to:

• Define your close and find where time goes by agreeing on what “done” means, pulling work into pre-close, and putting every task in a shared checklist.
• Map dependencies and cut rework by letting reviewers start on finished work sooner and using three questions to decide whether an error is worth reopening the books.
• Automate in the right order, starting with reconciliations, then journal entries, then flux, once the process is standardized.
• Protect accuracy as you speed up with named reviewers, controls around your AI, and auditors brought in early.

The guide ends with a checklist of all six steps, so your team can start putting them to work at your next close.

Every day you take off the close is a day decision-makers work with real numbers.