What Color Would You Label the Month-End Close?

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is cited as being named by the Philadelphia police department in 1966 due to the mayhem the high volume of pedestrian and automobile traffic caused.

Today the term is more accounting centric with black ink signifying profit and the day being one of the most profitable for retailers.

Perhaps you could simplify your color choices for the close to one of profit (black) or one of loss (red).

Going round the color wheel, here are your options:

Orange: orange combines the fire and blood of red with the joy of yellow. Yep, regardless of your process, it is a somewhat unpleasant, fire under your seat, three to five day mad rush to get everything reconciled and the books closed, when joy is at last found at the end.

Yellow: the color of joy and intellect – if you have manual systems, the supply of joy will be short while intellect will be in high demand.

Green: said to symbolize freshness and harmony – harmony can often be poisoned when fresh numbers hit the ledger and those doing manual reconciliations have to do some rework.

Blue: is all about stability, confidence and truth. For what you know and what you can see via your manual processes, sure the reconciliations are stable and true. Is your confidence stable when the auditors pay a visit?

Purple: purple symbolizes power and ambition. It’s a shame when ambition to improve processes and automate the account reconciliation process is struck down powerfully by those with inhibitions on costs and implementation interruption fears.

White: is associated with safety and purity. While keeping current archaic manual processes in place feels safe, this is pure insanity when it comes to what your finance team, your auditors and your spouse wondering when you are coming home for dinner think.

At SkyStem, we go with clear. ART is your means to a crystal clear, month-end close. See how here.