2020 created unprecedented challenges for everyone, including finance teams that had to, for the first time, perform much of their work remotely. This major on-the-fly adjustment to telecommuting compounded longstanding issues with financial processes.

According to a Forrester Consulting survey of 336 IT and finance executives around the world, 90% of respondents reported problems with their close process in 2020. These challenges aren't limited to the financial close. For many companies, financial processes are not yet automated or standardized, leading to time-consuming data entry (and re-entry) for reconciliations, reclassifications and adjustments.

Dealing with corrupted and/or outdated data is another hurdle, since the various systems involved may not be updated in real-time. Finance teams might not know what's being spent until they're reviewing documents during the close itself-at which point they might still be waiting on assets from other departments and needing to re-check them for accuracy.

Finance departments must contend, not only with these deep-seated issues, but also with lingering uncertainty about how long it will take to recover from the turmoil of the coronavirus pandemic. Fortunately, there are reliable tools to help companies with these challenges.