Modern organizations operate in an environment where data flows constantly, regulations evolve quickly, and competition demands speed. In this landscape, the accounting process is more than just recording numbers — it is the backbone of financial reporting, compliance, and long-term business performance. Learning how to improve accounting processes and procedures can give companies a stronger foundation for growth, protect against costly errors, and support investor confidence.
When accounting departments rely on outdated workflows, the risks can be significant. Bottlenecks, data silos, and manual entries often slow financial transaction recording and increase the likelihood of inaccuracies. These inefficiencies don’t just waste time; they can also lead to audit issues, insider risk, or even regulatory penalties. By contrast, accounting process improvement allows businesses to unlock the full potential of their financial information, streamline reporting, and position their accounting teams as strategic partners to the wider enterprise.
Here, we’ll explore the common pain points in accounting workflows, practical steps to enhance efficiency, the role of accounting automation, and best practices for ensuring compliance and strong financial management. Along the way, we’ll also look at how technology and people can come together to build future-ready accounting functions.
Common Pain Points in Accounting Workflows
Even the most skilled accounting firms and internal finance leaders encounter challenges in keeping workflows consistent and reliable. Many of these challenges stem from legacy practices or insufficient investment in accounting technology.
Some of the most frequent friction points include:
Disconnected systems and data silos: When financial data lives across multiple platforms without integration, accountants spend valuable time reconciling records. This often leads to duplicate work and difficulty creating a single source of truth.
Manual journal entries and reconciliations: Reliance on spreadsheets increases the risk of human error and slows down the accounting cycle. Even a small typo can create weeks of delays during audits or closings.
Lack of standardization: Inconsistent policies across departments lead to unpredictable results in financial statements, making it harder for leadership to compare performance over time.
Inconsistent closing cycles: Extended month-end or quarter-end close timelines can delay reporting and decision-making, leaving executives with outdated financial insights.
High audit preparation workloads: Without proper documentation or automated tracking, audit prep becomes a time-intensive burden that distracts the team from strategic projects.
Inability to track real-time KPIs: A lag in reporting prevents leaders from monitoring financial performance and adjusting strategy promptly.
These problems compound over time. Without process improvement, accounting departments may find themselves firefighting daily tasks instead of driving forward-looking financial management. Overcoming these pain points requires not only new technology, but also new approaches to workflow design, training, and organizational alignment.
Steps to Improve Accounting Processes
Addressing inefficiencies in accounting begins with a structured plan. The path to accounting process improvement requires both organizational alignment and clear accountability for the accounting team. When improvements are made deliberately and consistently, they not only reduce errors but also strengthen collaboration across business units and build trust with leadership.
Key steps to take include:
Conduct a current state audit: Map each accounting workflow to identify bottlenecks, duplicated tasks, and compliance risks. This helps leadership prioritize what to address first and clarifies where technology investments will have the most impact. Interviews with staff and time-tracking analysis often reveal hidden inefficiencies.
Standardize policies and procedures: Define consistent processes for documenting financial transactions and closing cycles. Having uniform policies reduces discrepancies, streamlines audits, and gives new hires a clear roadmap to follow.
Clarify roles and responsibilities: Ensure the accounting team knows exactly who is accountable for approvals, reconciliations, and review points. Clear accountability reduces duplication and helps prevent missed steps, especially during busy close cycles.
Introduce approval workflows and access controls: Reduce insider risk while ensuring accountability and accuracy in reporting. These guardrails protect both the company and individual employees, while also making it easier to demonstrate compliance during audits.
Develop a review cadence: Monthly and quarterly reviews prevent issues from accumulating, supporting timely financial reporting and avoiding last-minute scrambles. Frequent reviews also allow teams to spot recurring issues and fix root causes.
Align goals with business units and compliance needs: Make sure improvements serve both operational growth and regulatory frameworks like SOX compliance. Alignment helps position the accounting department as a trusted business partner rather than a back-office function.
When executed consistently, these steps not only improve workflow efficiency but also enhance transparency and strengthen collaboration between the accounting team and other business units. Over time, standardized processes also reduce training costs, increase audit readiness, and build confidence with stakeholders.
Automating for Accuracy and Efficiency
Automation is one of the most transformative forces in accounting today. Accounting automation reduces human error, speeds up the accounting cycle, and provides deeper insight into financial records. By automating manual tasks, organizations allow their accounting teams to shift from transaction-focused work toward strategic financial analysis and planning.
Areas where automation delivers results include:
Invoice processing and approvals: Removing manual intervention ensures faster and more accurate vendor payments, minimizing late fees and strengthening vendor relationships. Automated routing rules also cut down on approval delays.
Reconciliations and close workflows: Automated checks help maintain consistent accounting workflow practices and reduce the time required to close books each cycle. This shortens the overall reporting timeline, improving agility.
Audit readiness: Automated logs and version control make it easier to demonstrate compliance and respond quickly to auditor requests. Instead of scrambling to find supporting documents, teams can pull accurate records instantly.
Reporting and financial statements: Automation streamlines the preparation of recurring reports, giving leadership timely access to financial information and freeing up teams to provide forward-looking insights.
With robotic process automation (RPA) and AI-based tools, accounting firms and departments can reassign routine accounting tasks to software while focusing human expertise on financial management and strategic decisions. Automation also enables predictive insights, giving leadership a clearer view of future cash flow, risk exposure, and performance trends. When embedded across the department, these tools reduce close times, improve accuracy, and help teams operate as proactive partners to the business rather than reactive record-keepers.
Best Practices for Strong Internal Controls
Accounting accuracy depends heavily on internal controls. Without them, errors and fraud can go unnoticed, undermining confidence in financial performance and compliance. Strong controls act as both a preventative and detective mechanism, ensuring that transactions are recorded properly, reviewed on time, and aligned with organizational policies.
Core best practices include:
Separation of duties: Splitting responsibilities prevents a single individual from controlling an entire accounting process. For example, the employee who approves vendor payments should not also be responsible for recording them. This creates natural checks that limit fraud risk.
Approval matrices and access limitations: Accounting software should enforce role-based access to financial records, ensuring data integrity. Limiting permissions ensures sensitive data is only visible to authorized staff, protecting confidentiality and compliance.
Reconciliation of accounting procedures and variance analysis: These checks help identify discrepancies before they reach financial statements. Standardizing reconciliation timelines (such as weekly bank reconciliations) ensures issues are detected early rather than piling up at month-end.
Timely journal entry reviews: Reviewing entries ensures consistency with accounting standards and organizational policies. Having senior staff regularly spot-check journal entries also promotes accountability and improves team accuracy.
Documentation and compliance: Maintaining clear records supports frameworks like SOX and internal control over financial reporting (ICFR). Documentation also provides a roadmap for auditors and helps leadership verify that proper safeguards are in place.
Ongoing training: Regular refreshers for the accounting team keep controls top-of-mind and ensure staff remain aware of evolving best practices. Training also helps teams stay sharp on updates to GAAP, IFRS, or regulatory guidance.
By adopting these best practices, companies reduce risk, protect the integrity of their financial information, and support a healthy control environment that stakeholders can trust. In the long run, strong internal controls not only safeguard assets but also boost organizational efficiency by reducing the time spent chasing errors.
Leveraging Technology for Scalable Growth
As organizations grow, the accounting department must adapt. Technology is central to this adaptation, enabling scalability without sacrificing accuracy. Modern finance leaders are recognizing that digital tools not only handle routine transactions but also enhance strategic insights.
Cloud platforms: Modern accounting software centralizes data, allowing teams to collaborate in real time across locations and business units. Cloud deployment also improves disaster recovery, since financial records remain safe and accessible even in unexpected situations.
Dashboards and analytics: Real-time access to financial data supports forecasting, decision-making, and performance monitoring. When leadership can visualize cash flow trends and KPIs instantly, they are better equipped to make strategic decisions.
Integration with business systems: Linking accounting technology with payroll, inventory, and CRM systems eliminates data silos and improves visibility. This integration ensures data consistency and prevents the duplication of entries, which is common in disconnected systems.
Scalable architecture: Cloud-based platforms help organizations manage growth, acquisitions, and global expansion with ease. They support multiple currencies, diverse tax rules, and complex consolidations, which are vital for businesses with international operations.
For many businesses, this represents the digital transformation in accounting. By moving beyond legacy systems, companies can accelerate process improvement, improve accuracy, and build resilience into their financial management practices. More importantly, scalable technology enables finance leaders to move from transactional oversight to strategic advisement, helping organizations grow with confidence.
Building a Future-Ready Accounting Team
Technology alone cannot improve the accounting process; people and culture are equally important. A future-ready accounting team embraces continuous improvement, adaptability, and a commitment to best practices. Cultivating the right mindset is just as essential as deploying the right software.
Principles for building such a team include:
Continuous improvement mindset: Teams should regularly review and refine accounting workflow steps, always looking for opportunities to enhance efficiency. Encouraging staff to flag inefficiencies or suggest improvements fosters a culture of ownership.
Change management: Leaders must ensure the accounting department is prepared for shifts in technology, regulation, and business needs. Clear communication and phased rollouts of new tools help reduce resistance and build buy-in from employees.
Finance leadership involvement: Executives must take an active role in steering accounting process improvement initiatives, not just delegate responsibility. Visible leadership commitment signals to the team that transformation efforts are a priority.
KPI tracking: Monitoring outcomes such as close cycle time and error rates helps evaluate improvements and justifies future investments. Over time, these metrics provide a clear view of whether process changes are delivering meaningful results.
Awareness of evolving regulations: Staying informed about frameworks like statutory reporting and ICFR keeps accounting firms and departments compliant. Continuous education ensures the team can respond quickly to regulatory updates.
By investing in both people and tools, organizations can create an accounting team that not only meets today’s needs but also thrives in tomorrow’s business environment. Building this future-ready workforce requires patience, but the payoff is a department that contributes to strategy, risk management, and organizational success.
Accelerate Your Accounting Transformation
Organizations that prioritize accounting process improvement can expect more accurate reporting, stronger compliance, and greater business agility. Modern solutions offer powerful ways to achieve these outcomes.
Software platforms: At DFIN, we deliver tools that support SEC reporting, close management, and audit readiness, enabling finance teams to operate with speed and precision.
Documentation tools: Automation simplifies tasks like financial statement tie-outs, ensuring completeness and consistency.
Compliance support: Solutions tailored for financial reporting and statutory reporting protect companies from regulatory risk and strengthen governance practices.
Strategic services: Expert advisory helps align the accounting process with compliance, controls, and corporate financial planning and analysis.
With DFIN, organizations can modernize their accounting workflow, reduce risk, and strengthen confidence in financial performance. The result is not just an improved back-office function, but a finance team equipped to play a central role in shaping strategy, managing risk, and guiding sustainable growth.
By leveraging the right technology and expertise, businesses can ensure their accounting processes evolve alongside their operations, creating a scalable foundation that supports long-term transformation and competitive advantage.
See why leading companies choose DFIN to modernize their accounting processes and drive long-term financial performance.
