KPMG's piece on the future of the financial close describes an "Intelligent Close": transactions validated at the source, accounting increasingly automated, reporting moving towards real time, and a maturity path that ends in a continuous close where staff spend their time on analysis instead of reconciliation.
The enterprise framing can obscure how relevant this is for SMEs. In many companies the administration is fully reliable once a year, months after year-end, and every decision in between runs on stale numbers. The SME version of the continuous close is not a platform program but a design choice: reconcile bank, debtors, creditors and payroll monthly, automate the recurring entries, specify the balance sheet as a routine, and prototype the monthly report together with the management team. The reward is double: current information all year, and a file that is simply ready when the accountant or auditor arrives. Every month becomes a small year-end, and the scramble disappears.