Month End Close - Best practices to manage your Workday platform

For this issue of In The Loop, we’re focusing on a topic that’s near and dear to our hearts. Month end close! We’ll be dialing in on accounting operations and best practices around how to manage your Workday platform in lockstep with your close cycles. 

ABC - Always Be Closing 

If you find yourself in the middle of another hectic or labor intensive month end close cycle, have no fear. We can help you get organized, start planning, and focus on execution. 

When it comes to month end in Workday, if you fail to plan then you should plan to fail. Let’s talk about how to utilize people, process, and technology to streamline your close activities and set your team up for success. What we’re about to share with you is not fluff. It’s a real life example of how an accounting team took control of their work and shaved 15 days off their close calendar. 

Stop me if you’ve heard this story before

They were doing double duty. Keeping the lights on so their legacy system still functioned while simultaneously implementing Workday. The team was tired. Overworked. They experienced some turnover so the group was leaner than usual. Many tasks were on deck each day so they could continue marching towards their goal of swapping out their financial system of record.

Then, Workday went live! They hired some new team members. Everyone was excited to get through the cutover and start rocking and rolling. But wait a minute… Integrations were failing. Transactions weren’t routing properly for review and approval. They did not have all the reporting they needed. Internal and external auditors were asking for things, but they couldn't find them in the system or didn’t have the right reporting at their fingertips. The bank reconciliation was not automated. People needed training. And most importantly, the close cycle was taking more than 30 days from start to finish despite the fact that everyone was working as hard as they possibly could. 

None of this was anyone’s fault. In fact, it’s very common with new system implementations. There just simply isn’t enough time to cover all your bases and test every part of the system before it goes live. Production is where it gets real and the stakes are much higher which can cause stress and create pressure on internal teams. The storming is pretty normal. 

So now what? How did we solve their problems? 

We asked people to stop what they were doing and come talk to us. Tell us, or better yet, show us what they were trying to do so we could determine why it wasn’t working. We discovered they needed more training around how to open and close the modules and periods in Workday for all companies. Revaluation results were incorrect. The bank reconciliation was taking many days to complete. They were unable to tie out cash due to conversion issues. Two integrations critical for close were constantly failing. The business processes for supplier invoices and expense reports were not set up correctly from day one. People could not see key transactions or reports. Many issues came to the surface and right away we knew how important it was to stabilize their system. Fix the parts and pieces that were causing friction. Discuss what could be automated as soon as possible. Identify who needed training so we could enable them. We gave the accounting team a lifeline so they could phone a friend when they ran into issues. 

Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet in this situation. We know it sounds cliche but the answer really was a combination of people, process, and technology. They had an amazing team of accounting professionals that worked with us to solve as many issues as possible. Smart, dedicated, and eager to learn; they really wanted to bring all the problems to the surface and be part of the solution. 

We helped them refine their existing close checklist, automated their bank reconciliation, and set up new allocations. The revaluation issues were human error instead of being system related; a change in process and communication to the team ensured this never happened again. We stood up a production support model, created a Workday roadmap for tracking internal projects and initiatives, and instituted a pre-close planning process to help them scale Workday alongside their changing business needs. A deep dive around security and reporting helped uncover additional business requirements, and we resolved all their integration issues. Changes to the business processes took a little longer however as time went on the team’s understanding of how to use Workday only increased. Along the way we built up trust as well as a sense of ownership and camaraderie. It was a big organizational shift for them, but everyone was on board with the majority of these efforts. 

Month End Close Checklist

Save this checklist to close your month out right.

What was the end result of all this work? 

Their close cycle was cut in half. Do they still have problems? Absolutely! Who doesn’t? There is no such thing as perfection. But each month they got better; the close cycle got better and shorter. At the end of the day, that’s all you can ask for, right? Incremental progress that moves your business forward and helps you retain your core team. Gain some momentum so you can go faster. Strong leadership and a solid understanding of the business are also critical when taking on this type of endeavor. 

And let’s be clear. Not all problems are software or system related. A lot of issues stem from dependencies on people or vendors outside of your organization. So we like to focus on what is within your power to control or change and Workday is a great place to start. It’s a powerful platform with a lot of functionality and it’s important to explore whether you are leveraging it to its full potential.

What’s next?

The team at Stormloop is here to help you make the most of your Workday investment, and we recognize that high performing teams focus on what they can do better. They are never afraid to take a step back, examine what they are doing, ask difficult questions, and try new things to help them work smarter not harder. 

Our next Financials blog will focus on M&A and international expansion. Be on the lookout! 

Written by: Lynea Long 

Follow Lynea here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynealong/
Follow Stormloop here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stormloop-technologies-llc