Financial close management is the discipline of organising and supervising the financial close: the period-end process in which a company completes its accounting entries, reconciles its accounts and produces financial statements. The main entry describes the steps of the close itself; this entry notes what the management layer adds.
Where the close is the work, close management is the control over it. A finance team maintains a close calendar and checklist listing every task, its owner, its deadline and its dependencies, from the subledger close through reconciliations, accruals and intercompany elimination to the general ledger close. Progress is tracked daily, exceptions are escalated, and each step is evidenced with sign-offs, including journal entry approval, so that auditors can test the controls.
The term is also the name of a category of software that automates task lists, reconciliations and journal workflows. Common measures of performance are the number of working days to close, the volume of late or manual journals and the number of post-close adjustments. The same framework applies at each month-end close and, with additional reporting steps, at quarter and year end.