Automating month-end close is almost always a fixed fee, not an hourly engagement. The usual path starts with a fixed-fee automation assessment, scoped to your environment after a discovery call, that maps your close, scores every step, and projects ROI. The build that follows is quoted as a fixed price against that scope, and the assessment fee is credited toward it if you proceed. What moves the number is how many close steps you automate, how many entities you run, and how clean your source systems are, never an hourly meter.
It is priced by scope, not by the hour
Automating two high-friction steps (say, bank reconciliation matching and AP aging distribution) costs far less than automating the full close. You choose the scope, and the price is fixed to it. Larger work is sequenced into phases so you fund the highest-ROI automations first and validate the return before expanding.
Entity count is the biggest cost lever
A single-entity close is the lowest-cost entry point. Multi-entity consolidations add intercompany eliminations, cross-entity reconciliations, and more audit evidence to gather, all of which expand scope. The automation discipline is identical at every scale; the sequencing and governance are what change.
The ROI Usually Makes the Decision for You
Most finance teams lose dozens of hours every close to manual rework, and that adds up fast. The assessment measures exactly how many hours you are losing and what they cost, then sets that against the one-time price of the build. In most cases the savings outrun the project cost many times over within the first year, which makes the call straightforward. And if the numbers ever do not work, the assessment tells you that too, so you are never guessing. Your figures come from your actual baseline, not industry averages. For a full worked example, see the RPA ROI for finance teams guide.
The assessment de-risks the spend
The most expensive automation is the one built for the wrong process. A 2 to 3 day assessment scores each close step, projects conservative-to-aggressive ROI, and hands you a sequenced 90-day roadmap, so you approve the build price knowing the expected return. The fee is creditable toward the build. See the month-end close assessment for the full deliverable.
You usually do not need new software
Much of the close can be automated with tools already in your stack: Microsoft 365, Power Query, Power Automate, and your ERP, with targeted RPA only where the user interface is the only way in. Skipping a new SaaS subscription keeps both build and run costs down. For the underlying tasks, the guide on the five close tasks to automate first walks through each one.
Common Questions
What does it cost to automate month-end close? +
Month-end close automation is almost always scoped as a fixed fee, not an hourly project. The typical path starts with a fixed-fee automation assessment, scoped to your environment after a discovery call, that maps your close, scores each step, and projects ROI before any build. The build that follows is then quoted as a fixed price against that scope, and the assessment fee is credited toward it if you proceed. Cost scales with the number of close steps automated, the number of entities, and how clean the source systems are, not with hourly meters.
What drives the price up or down? +
Three things. First, scope: automating two high-friction steps costs far less than the full close. Second, entity count: a single-entity close is simpler than a multi-entity consolidation with intercompany eliminations. Third, source-system cleanliness: well-structured ERP data automates cheaply, while messy exports and undocumented spreadsheets add discovery and exception-handling work. A focused, single-entity engagement is the lowest-cost entry point and the fastest to prove ROI.
What is the ROI, and how fast is payback? +
A single-entity finance team typically loses 30 to 50 hours every close cycle to manual reassembly work; at a blended fully-loaded labor cost of $70 to $100 per hour, that is roughly $25,000 to $60,000 a year of recoverable capacity. Multi-entity organizations can recover 200 to 400 hours per cycle as consolidation and audit-evidence work compounds. Because most close automations target repetitive, high-volume steps, payback periods are usually measured in months, not years.
Why start with an assessment instead of just building? +
Because the most expensive automation is the one you build for the wrong process. The assessment scores each close step on rule complexity, volume, data structure, stability, error impact, and technology compatibility, then sequences the build by ROI. You see the projected return and the price before committing to the build, and the assessment fee is creditable toward it.
Do we need new software to automate the close? +
Usually not. Much of the close can be automated with tools already in your stack, Microsoft 365, Power Query, Power Automate, and your ERP, with targeted RPA only where the UI is the only available interface. Avoiding a new SaaS subscription keeps both the build cost and the run cost down.
Get a Fixed Number for Your Close
Book a 30-minute discovery call. We'll walk through your close cycle and what a 2-3 day assessment could surface, then scope a fixed price you approve before any work begins.