Achieve a Stress-Free Year-End
Why is Year-end so stressful?
The time of year most finance teams hate, Year-end is typically associated with working late, avoiding holidays and a lot of stress. But, why is this?
Time Pressures
Accuracy Pressures
Business Pressures
Uncertainty
Unfamiliarity
Pressure to get back to BAU
Financial Transformation Live:
Breaking the Year-End Stress Cycle
We have a challenge for you - how about we make next year’s year-end the least stressful to date? While it is fresh in your mind, hit play and join Hannah Munro as she unpicks the factors that stress us out at year-end and suggests strategies to deal with them.
Learn More about Financial Transformation Live
On average, it takes businesses
0 Days
to complete their Year-end
How can you reduce Year-end stress?
Prep Well
If you are well prepared then year-end comes a lot easier. Some of this is about getting things done early and some of it is about planning.
Reduce Uncertainties
Uncertainty is a major cause of stress so look at ways to reduce them. Think about what things have variables and what things can be planned for.
Automate where possible
Automation can be an absolute godsend. Whether it is automating the bank rec, PO matching or depreciation journals.The more you automate, the quicker your year-end will go.
Do it earlier
There are some tasks you can get done way before the year-end.Each task you do early means that you have more time at year-end to do the ones that can’t be done in advance.
Do it more regularly
If you only do a task once a year not only does it mean that you are unfamiliar so it takes longer but also that it will be a much larger task.
Clear your desk
Not literally but figuratively. Don’t take on any extra projects or get involved in stuff that you really don’t need to be involved in. Dedicate yourself to year-end so that you don’t get distracted.
Recognise what is going well
Make sure that you and your team celebrate things that are going well.Have a task chart up on the wall and cross things off. You’ll find it’s a great motivator when you're deep in year-end.
Delegate tasks
Don’t take everything on yourself otherwise, you’ll soon feel alone and overwhelmed.Make sure you break up the tasks and get others involved otherwise the stress could become unbearable.
Constructively say no
We always want to please people but sometimes you just have to say no.
Tell them why you can’t help and either suggest someone else who can help or book the meeting but for two months' time.
Prioritise your time
Give your time to the things that are important and urgent.If you have tasks on your to-do list that are unimportant or not urgent then forget them until you have the capacity.
Take Part In Our Year-End Benchmarking Survey
We are gathering your feedback on what Year-End is like for you. The results will be collated and presented as a benchmarking report which will be emailed out to you, should you wish to receive it.
Begin Survey
Achieve a stress-free Year-end with Sage Intacct
Sage Intacct is Sage's new flagship accounting solution. Built on the Cloud, Sage Intacct offers powerful real-time reporting, an out of the box integration with Salesforce, and multi-dimensional accounting. Sage Intacct helps customers improve their close process and reduce their consolidation time, enabling businesses to gain visibility across a variety of dimensions and allowing businesses to scale easily.
Explore Sage Intacct
Sage Intacct helped Halstatt automate core accounting processes enabling £100K savings annually:
“Since implementing Sage Intacct, we’ve streamlined essentially every finance process we have. When we had seven accountants, you’d have to track who was doing what and coordinate everything. Now with only two people focused on the close process, it’s much easier and less complicated especially since everything is in one system. Our monthly close is now 65% faster than it used to be."
