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ISG Research is happy to share insights gleaned from our latest Buyers Guide, an assessment of how well software providers’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Financial Close: ISG Research Buyers Guide is the distillation of a year of market and product research by ISG Research.
The financial records of an enterprise must be reviewed periodically and summarized to create financial statements that inform executives and 
interested third parties of the organization’s financial condition and performance. An enterprise’s financial close involves a set of repeated processes that must be performed in a prescribed order and fashion to maximize productivity while ensuring absolute accuracy. Enterprise software enables finance and accounting departments to be more productive throughout the close by automating calculations, coordinating the execution of processes and facilitating communication among participants. The desire to make the department more productive and resilient has led to increased investment in technology to assist in performing the full consolidate and close cycle.
ISG Research defines close management software as applications that support the timely and efficient completion of close cycle tasks, especially automating reconciliations and performing process management functions.
Close management software has improved in recent years, reducing workloads through automation, enhancing ease of use while providing a single work area for staff accountants to reduce administrative overhead. Systems now offer more effective collaboration features to smooth the process and ensure resiliency, including secure data sharing and centralized document storage for working papers and supporting evidence for audits.
Another factor driving the adoption of dedicated software is the desire to shorten the accounting close. The accounting or financial close is the process of finalizing an enterprise's financial statements at the end of an accounting period, such as a month, quarter or year. During the financial close, all financial transactions are reviewed and adjusted, and the financial statements are prepared, including the balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement and the statement of shareholders’ equity. This process is important for ensuring the accuracy and completeness of financial reporting, and it is often a critical step in meeting regulatory requirements and providing stakeholders with a clear picture of the company's financial performance.
There is general agreement that organizations should complete the accounting close within a business week. Workflow automation is especially useful in handling the close-consolidate-report cycle, specifically to manage the process in a hybrid working environment and for organizations that span the globe. As with any workflow-enabled process, administrators spend far less time ensuring individuals have started or completed their tasks, hand-offs are smoother and, where reviews and approvals are required, these events are recorded and easily accessed by external and internal auditors and support assertions by executives that internal controls and procedures have been followed. ISG Research asserts that by 2028, one-half of midsize and larger enterprises will use close management software to speed the close and achieve greater control of the process.
In accounting, the term reconciliation refers to any process that compares two sets of records to ensure their accuracy and consistency—an inherent component of the double-entry framework. This typically involves 
comparing financial transactions or balances from different sources, such as bank statements versus accounting records or intercompany transactions between different subsidiaries of a company. The main objective is to ensure that the books balance by identifying and resolving discrepancies between two sets of records, ensuring that the accounting data is accurate. Automating reconciliations, especially intercompany transactions, makes the staff more productive and makes the department a more attractive place to work.
Workflow-enabled systems also contribute to a smoother close because consolidating and closing the books should be almost exactly the same from one period to the next, including processes for handling exceptions and unexpected events and managing the close calendar. With workflow, the controller and chief accounting officer can spend less time on administration while having greater situational awareness and control.
Today’s technology can help finance and accounting executives make departments more productive in ways that improve the working environment. Technology makes it possible for enterprises to attract and retain the best talent in a resource-constrained market. Advances provided by artificial intelligence (AI) and even generative AI (GenAI) will likely make dedicated close-management software an even more compelling choice, especially in a time of growing complexity in accounting and the need for increased staff productivity. While accounting relies on doing the same things consistently, how they are done is constantly evolving because of legal and regulatory changes, as well as the evolution of accounting principles. A continuous improvement mindset enables the adaptability and resilience necessary to remain productive. Software designed to assist in managing the accounting close is an essential tool for financial executives.
The capability frameworks for the Close Management Buyers Guides encompass comprehensive methods for managing the critical components of financial close operations. These frameworks address the management of reconciliations, ensuring accurate account balancing and discrepancy resolution throughout the close cycle. Process and administration capabilities provide structured workflows and administrative oversight to maintain efficiency and control. Journal management functionality supports the accurate recording and processing of financial transactions, while analysis and reporting features enable comprehensive financial insights and stakeholder communication. Collaboration, compliance and auditing components facilitate seamless coordination among team members and ensure adherence to regulatory requirements and internal controls. Additionally, the frameworks incorporate the application of natural language processing (NLP), AI, and GenAI technologies to enhance process automation, accuracy and decision-making capabilities across all close management activities.
The ISG Buyers Guide™ for Financial Close Buyers Guide 2025 evaluates software providers and products that include support for close management, such as process management, reconciliations management, journal creation and management and analysis and reporting, and optionally include audit facilitation and NLP and AI capabilities. These are necessary to improve the efficiency and productivity of the accounting staff and ensure the smooth and consistent completion of close processes.
This research evaluates the following software providers offering products to address key elements of close management as we define it: Anaplan, BlackLine, Board, FloQast, HighRadius, OneStream, Oracle, Oracle NetSuite, Prophix, Trintech Adra, Trintech Cadency, Vena Solutions, Wolters Kluwer and Workday.
This research-based index evaluates the full business and information technology value of financial close software offerings. We encourage you to learn more about our Buyers Guide and its effectiveness as a provider selection and RFI/RFP tool.
We urge organizations to do a thorough job of evaluating financial close offerings in this Buyers Guide as both the results of our in-depth analysis of these software providers and as an evaluation methodology. The Buyers Guide can be used to evaluate existing suppliers, plus provides evaluation criteria for new projects. Using it can shorten the cycle time for an RFP and the definition of an RFI.
The Buyers Guide for Financial Close in 2025 finds OneStream first on the list, followed by BlackLine and Oracle.
Software providers that rated in the top three of any category ﹘ including the product and customer experience dimensions ﹘ earn the designation of Leader.
The Leaders in Product Experience are:
- OneStream.
- BlackLine.
- Oracle.
The Leaders in Customer Experience are:
- OneStream.
- BlackLine.
- Anaplan.
The Leaders across any of the seven categories are:
- OneStream, which has achieved this rating in seven of the seven categories.
- BlackLine in four categories.
- Anaplan and Oracle in three categories.
- FloQast in two categories.
- Vena Solutions and Workday in one category.
The overall performance chart provides a visual representation of how providers rate across product and customer experience. Software providers with products scoring higher in a weighted rating of the five product experience categories place farther to the right. The combination of ratings for the two customer experience categories determines their placement on the vertical axis. As a result, providers that place closer to the upper-right are “exemplary” and rated higher than those closer to the lower-left and identified as providers of “merit.” Software providers that excelled at customer experience over product experience have an “assurance” rating, and those excelling instead in product experience have an “innovative” rating.
Note that close provider scores should not be taken to imply that the packages evaluated are functionally identical or equally well-suited for use by every enterprise or process. Although there is a high degree of commonality in how organizations handle financial close, there are many idiosyncrasies and differences that can make one provider’s offering a better fit than another.
ISG Research has made every effort to encompass in this Buyers Guide the overall product and customer experience from our financial close blueprint, which we believe reflects what a well-crafted RFP should contain. Even so, there may be additional areas that affect which software provider and products best fit an enterprise’s particular requirements. Therefore, while this research is complete as it stands, utilizing it in your own organizational context is critical to ensure that products deliver the highest level of support for your projects.
You can find more details on our community as well as on our expertise in the research for this Buyers Guide.
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