Future of the Financial Close

In a world of accelerated reporting cycles, increasing audit scrutiny, and growing AI ambition, finance and FP&A leaders are being asked to do more with less—and do it faster. But while many look to AI for forecasting and planning, complete finance modernization starts earlier in the process. It starts with the close.

Intelligent Close is the critical foundation for trustworthy data, streamlined accounting, and real-time insights. It transforms the close process from a time-consuming obligation into a value-driving capability—one that fuels performance management, forecasting, and strategic planning.

KPMG approaches Intelligent Close through a maturity-based model built on four pillars: Trusted Transactions, Autonomous Accounting, Real-Time Reporting, and a Modern Workforce. This framework helps organizations move from being digitally enabled to GenAI-ready.

Before you can modernize forecasting or embed AI into your decision-making, you need clean, consistent, and timely data. Without it, planning functions are left waiting, reconciling, and rechecking figures—undermining both confidence and agility.

But Intelligent Close does more than fix broken processes. It unlocks financial intelligence by providing a blueprint for automation, process augmentation and analytics at the source of your data—empowering finance leaders to:

Move beyond traditional reporting to drive strategy, agility and resilience
Shorten close cycles, enabling continuous close and planning for more timely, informed decisions
Improve data quality, traceability, controls and auditability
Increase accuracy and confidence in planning and forecasting while reducing risk
Enhance collaboration across functions
Free up teams for higher-value insights and continuous improvement

And perhaps most importantly: it makes AI feel within reach. You don’t need to go from spreadsheets to GenAI and AI Agents overnight. You just need to take the next intelligent step forward.

1 | Trusted transactions

Establishing accuracy and control at the source

Data quality starts upstream. Finance teams can no longer afford to spend time fixing errors after the fact. Intelligent Close begins by ensuring every transaction is:

Secured correctly from systems of record
Standardized across business units
Validated automatically through anomaly detection and exception handling

This trust at the transaction level becomes a competitive advantage. It accelerates reconciliation, supports compliance, and gives FP&A the clean, traceable data needed to plan with confidence. When your data is trusted at the source, forecasting becomes faster, more accurate, and more transparent—unlocking advanced analytics all the way down to the transaction level.

2 | Autonomous accounting

Automating and standardizing the close process

Manual journey entries. Disconnected spreadsheets. Endless reconciliation. These are the hallmarks of a traditional close.

Autonomous accounting replaces fragmented processes with intelligent automation that can:

Generate journal entries automatically
Monitor general ledger activity in real time
Standardize accounting across entities and geographies

By reducing manual effort and introducing consistency, you can significantly shorten the close timeline and lay the groundwork for continuous accounting—leading eventually to continuous forecasting. A faster, more consistent close creates a dependable launchpad for forward-looking activities. With fewer delays and rework, your teams can spend more time analyzing performance—and less time explaining how the numbers came together.

3 | Real-time reporting

Enabling faster insights and smarter decisions

With trusted data and autonomous processes in place, reporting becomes less about catching up—and more about getting ahead.

Intelligent Close equips your finance function with:

Customizable reporting packages tailored by business unit or region
Automated dashboards refreshed in real-time
Integration with analytics tools for scenario planning and predictive modeling

This is where FP&A begins to take the lead. When the data is right and available in real time, you can shift from static reports to dynamic insights—and become a proactive partner to the business. Real-time reporting closes the gap between accounting and strategy, empowering finance leaders to spot trends earlier, course-correct faster, and support decision-making with up-to-date intelligence.

4 | Modern workforce

Freeing your talent for high-value work

Automation doesn’t replace your finance team—it empowers them. With fewer hours spent on reconciliation and corrections, your workforce can focus on delivering insight, not just reporting results.

It helps organizations build modern finance teams that are:

AI-centric and equipped with continuous learning opportunities
Data-savvy with clear understanding of performance drivers
Embedded in the business, acting as advisors, not just processers

Modern finance combines technical skills with business acumen. That means they not only spot issues in the numbers—they also understand what those numbers mean for strategic goals. A modern, AI-enabled workforce drives continuous improvement and strategic alignment—translating data into direction and insights into impact.

Digitally enabled

Manual tasks, disjointed systems, inconsistent processes

AI-embedded

Standardized workflows, partial automation, centralized cloud-based systems

GenAI-ready

High automation, AI-driven analytics, continuous close and planning capabilities

Every step forward—whether it’s automating reconciliations or standardizing journal entries—brings you closer to a finance function that’s accurate, agile, and AI-enabled.

You don’t have to overhaul everything overnight. In fact, most organizations begin with targeted pilots that demonstrate value quickly and scale over time. Here’s how to get started:

1 | Obtain leadership support: Success requires visible, empowered executive champions.

2| Define your AI ethics and risk appetite: Address security, explainability, and compliance from the start.

3| Stand up the right team: Bring together IT, finance, risk, HR, and other business leaders.

4 | Assess current capabilities: Evaluate your systems, data, and maturity against your future vision.

5 | Prioritize high-impact use cases: Identify areas with bottlenecks, inconsistencies, or high manual effort.

6 | Launch a sandbox or pilot: Give early adopters the space to test solutions and prove value.

7 | Measure success continuously: Define and track KPIs to refine your roadmap and sustain momentum. The path to Intelligent Close is iterative—but the outcome is transformative.

Many can implement a new tool. But not everyone knows how to unlock its value. KPMG brings:

Deep finance experience. We’ve worked with organizations at every maturity level and across industries.
Accelerators and frameworks built for speed and scale. From autonomous accounting to GL monitoring, we’ve developed use cases and enabling technology that deliver real results.
A future-ready lens. We don’t just optimize your close—we help you prepare for continuous planning and AI-enabled performance.

Other providers may offer tools or staff augmentation. KPMG can offer value that lasts. We know what “good” looks like and we know how to get you there.

Intelligent Close is more than a process—it’s a catalyst. For accuracy. For agility. For performance. If you’re ready to move beyond incremental improvement and start building a finance function that’s future-ready, let’s talk.

Let’s start a conversation about getting there Improve Your Finance Planning With KPMG

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