You can’t improve a close you don’t measure. But measuring the wrong things — or too many — is its own trap. Here are the close KPIs that actually drive decisions.
Run the free month-end close checklistfor a few months first; you can’t measure a process you don’t have.
The four that matter
- Days to close. Working days from period-end to issued accounts, per client. The headline number — but only useful when paired with the others, or you’ll close fast and sloppy.
- On-time rate. Percentage of clients closed by their agreed deadline. Consistency matters more to clients than raw speed.
- Escalation rate. How often a close hits an escalate path. Too high suggests scope or records problems upstream; zero may mean nobody’s checking the hard cases.
- Rework rate. How often accounts go back from review to the preparer. High rework points at a preparation or reconciliation gap, not a review gap.
Read them together
These KPIs are most useful as a set. A fast close with a high rework rate isn’t fast — it’s deferred work. A perfect on-time rate with a zero escalation rate may mean the review is rubber-stamping. The point of measuring is to see the trade-offs, then fix the upstream cause.
Making them effortless
Tracked by hand, these numbers are a chore nobody updates. Tracked automatically by a workflow that already knows when each close started, who it’s with, and when it was signed off, they’re a by-product. That’s one more reason the Month-End Close System is built to import into PathPilot — the workflow generates the metrics as it runs.
For ways to act on what the KPIs show, see reducing month-end close time and the month-end close process guide.