The system gives us anytime/anywhere visibility into the close. It also ensures that each and every task or reconciliation is completed, reviewed and approved, which is critical in today’s Sarbanes-Oxley environment.

In addition to the confidence that having a rigorous system to track status and completion of every step in the process gives him, Jeff also uses AFRM to continuously improve the process each month and to plan the next month’s close.

AFRM is a self improving system. If you perform a step that should be included in future months, you are able to schedule that step in future closes and conversely if a step is not required, you can delete it from future closes. As you go through your close, you are actually planning [and optimizing] future closes. It is kind of magical to have your whole team doing planning as they close the month! After the close is complete, management will approve the changed steps before finalizing the next month’s close process and voila, you have a built-in continuous improvement system.

The Director of Finance at RTI International Metals had this to say:

In addition to the increased speed of close, the possibilities with AFRM to ensure completeness and accuracy of close procedures, reduce errors and re-work, and enhance visibility of the close activities put the hard dollar signs on the project…

The beauty of the tool is in the visibility. The tool will not fix your close process, but it will put the problems with your close process right in front of your face and force you to fix them.

See Letter from RTI International Metals (PDF)

Read more customer testimonials here.