Ask anyone in finance how long the month-end close takes, then ask how much of that time is actually accounting.
Over more than a decade handling full sets of accounts — receivables, payables, revenues and expenses — and closing the books for small and mid-sized businesses, the pattern doesn't change much. The close isn't slow because reconciling numbers is hard for the accountant doing it. It's slow because accounting sits at the end of a line, waiting on a delivery to be confirmed, an expense to be approved, or a bank statement to be exported and matched by hand.
"The close isn't slow because the accounting is hard. It's slow because the accounting is stuck behind everyone else's schedule."
The part I pay attention to
When a close takes nine days, I look for where the number depends on one person chasing three other people for the same figure. Sales holds part of the answer, operations holds another, payments holds a third — and someone in accounting spends most of the month rebuilding the picture from all three, usually inside one spreadsheet nobody else can open with confidence.
What I'd do before adding more headcount
Hiring another accountant rarely closes the month faster — it just adds another person waiting on the same handoffs. The faster fix is usually smaller: get the three or four numbers accounting always chases to arrive on a schedule, in a form that doesn't need retyping. Finance operations and accounting work hand in hand; fixing the handoff between them is usually the whole job.
Closing faster isn't an accounting problem. It's a plumbing problem.