A few months ago, the majority of office doors in the UK closed, with very little notice, during the busiest time of the year for finance professionals: the year-end close. It is challenging to efficiently close the books during a normal month, but this left many finance departments in wholly new and unfamiliar waters.

With the pandemic continuing to impact the current environment, the challenges facing finance have multiplied: a distributed remote workforce, strained technology resources, children and loved ones who need help and care, and concerns about personal and financial well-being were and still are looming large in everyone’s minds.

Government efforts to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus have been unprecedented, and CFOs, financial controllers and their teams have been busy trying to rewrite the typical close playbook on the fly. Meanwhile, previously minor annoyances in your processes may have morphed into significant hurdles as stress levels increase.