From 5 days to 1: automating the month-end close

This is the story of how a multi-site hospitality group went from a five-day month-end close process to completing it in a single day.

The starting point

The group operates 15+ sites, each with its own EPOS system feeding into a central SAP B1 instance.

Identifying the bottlenecks

We identified four major bottlenecks: daily stock movement reconciliation, journal entry creation, report generation, and financial forecasting.

The automation approach

Rather than a big-bang transformation, we automated each bottleneck individually, proving value at each step.

Stock movements: Built an automated daily reconciliation that pulls EPOS data, matches it against SAP inventory, generates journals, and flags discrepancies. This alone eliminated 2 days of month-end work.

Report automation: 13 reports that previously took a full day now run automatically.

Forecasting: Replaced quarterly Excel-based forecasting with a live dashboard combining SAP actuals with two forecast methods, updating daily.

The results

Month-end close went from 5 days to 1. The finance team reclaimed 40+ hours per month. Forecasting moved from quarterly to daily.

Lessons learned

Start small, prove value, then expand. Integrate with existing systems rather than replacing them. Always maintain a human in the loop.