London, United Kingdom, Oct. 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- For large UK and multinational groups, the financial close is less a question of speed than of standardisation. Subsidiaries arrive through acquisitions, regions make their own technology decisions and legacy systems stay in place, so group finance ends up reviewing one set of accounts drawn from many different environments. Sixthfin, a financial data control and financial close technology company with offices in London and Paris, provides enterprise finance teams with a common close review and control environment across that estate through its platform, which supports 38 ERP systems and is deployed in more than 70 countries. For more information visit https://sixthfin.com/en/
Each of those systems tends to carry its own charts of accounts, currencies, master data and accounting practices. Finance teams then add Excel workbooks, collaboration tools, supporting documents and local review processes on top. The result is rarely a shortage of financial data. The difficulty is assembling a homogeneous, controlled and demonstrable financial base from which group finance can review the close.
An enterprise close management platform provides finance leadership with a common environment for coordinating, reviewing and controlling financial close activity across multiple entities. In complex groups its role extends beyond task scheduling to harmonising financial information, standardising controls and analytical review, and maintaining evidence across otherwise fragmented systems.
Closing centralises financial information from different source systems and gives group finance a common environment for balance sheet review, account analysis and justification, anomaly analysis, workflow management, supporting documentation and transaction level investigation. The platform operates independently of an organisation's ERP, chart of accounts, currency or local accounting environment, and supports different languages. Data is fed through a configured data exchange mechanism, allowing a single review standard to be applied across systems that were never designed to work together. More than 1,000 companies and groups were covered by Sixthfin technology in 2025.
"Groups do not usually set out to run six ERPs; they acquire them. The question is no longer how to get everything onto one system, but whether the close can be controlled to a single standard while the systems underneath stay different," said François Vallana, CEO of Sixthfin.
The distinction shapes how a group plans its close transformation. Replacing ERP infrastructure and introducing a close review layer are different technology decisions with different costs. A conventional systems transformation involves migration, data conversion, process redesign, integration work and change management. A review and control layer is deployed around the systems already in place. Closing does not require an organisation to migrate every subsidiary onto a single ERP before close processes can be standardised, and the company says implementation is typically measured in weeks. For finance transformation leaders competing for finite technology budgets, that difference determines whether the work is scoped as a finance project or an IT programme.
It also makes a phased approach realistic. A group can begin with a defined group of entities or accounting cycles and extend the platform progressively, rather than treating group-wide ERP standardisation as a prerequisite for improving close control.
The wider UK research shows what finance leaders want the close to deliver. In the Sixthfin Report on Accounting Transformation, a study of 303 CFOs at large and mid-sized private UK companies conducted by Odoxa for Sixthfin and published in May 2026, 67% named improving the reliability of accounts as their priority for improving the close, ahead of reducing delays. Only 42% described financial close management in their company as very satisfactory. The survey covered UK companies of that size generally rather than multi-entity groups specifically. The full study is available at https://sixthfin.com/en/resource/sixthfin-report-on-accounting-transformation/
The same research points to where the strain comes from. CFOs cited late collection of information, multiple Excel files, dependence on certain key individuals, lack of coordination between teams and difficulties with traceability and account documentation as the factors that complicate the close. These factors are organisational rather than technical, which is why they tend to compound as the number of subsidiaries and systems rises.
In practice, the exposure tends to surface at the least convenient moments: during an audit, in the integration of a newly acquired subsidiary, or when a group is asked to substantiate its reported figures at short notice. A group may complete its close within the required timetable while still depending on manual consolidation, individual spreadsheet owners and local knowledge to explain unusual balances. Centralising close information does not remove the need for local finance expertise; it changes how that expertise is coordinated and evidenced at group level. Analytical reviews, account justifications, comments and supporting documents are held within the platform, giving finance teams a common review history across entities alongside the ability to drill into individual accounting transactions.
For procurement teams evaluating an enterprise close management platform, the practical questions go beyond feature lists: which ERP systems are supported, whether local charts of accounts can remain in place, how data is harmonised, how transaction level drill-down is maintained, how quickly additional entities can be onboarded, and how much internal IT resource is required.
For complex groups, the requirement is standardisation without uniformity: common controls, consistent account justification standards, consolidated visibility and traceable evidence, while accepting that the ERP estate will remain heterogeneous. That position is likely to become more common as large organisations continue to acquire companies, add finance systems and introduce AI into accounting processes. More systems and faster automated data do not by themselves produce greater financial control; without a common review layer, additional automation increases the volume and speed of information while leaving finance teams with the same problem of demonstrating that it has been analysed and can be relied upon.
For more information about Closing or to request a demonstration, visit https://sixthfin.com/en/solution/closing/
About Sixthfin
Sixthfin develops financial data control and financial close technology for complex organisations. Its Closing platform structures balance sheet reviews, account analysis and justification, control standardisation, collaborative workflows, documentation and transaction level investigation across multi-entity and multi-ERP environments. Sixthfin technology supports 38 ERP systems, is deployed in more than 70 countries and covers more than 1,000 companies and groups in 2025, working across different charts of accounts, currencies and accounting environments without requiring organisations to replace their underlying ERP infrastructure. The company has offices in London and Paris.
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