Speeding up the close: instead of grumbling about the significant time and resources required to comply with new regulatory demands, many companies see a golden opportunity for finance to lead the way to better decision-making.

Summary

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Compliance

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Speeding up the close: instead of grumbling about the significant time and resources required to comply with new regulatory demands, many companies see a golden opportunity for finance to lead the way to better decision-making.

The clock keeps ticking, as public companies with a January-December fiscal year--having already squeezed out 15 days from the former 90-day requirement for closing their full-year books--must trim another 15 days by December 2004 to meet Sarbanes-Oxley requirements. With deadlines looming, finance and technology staff are looking for ways to reduce time and speed up the process to meet the impending 60-day close deadline.

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While corporate finance departments scurry to accelerate their close process, analysts, investors and board audit committees are wat...

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