For many real estate teams, month-end close takes longer than it should. Some spend days chasing down payment details, reconciling bank activity, tracking unpaid invoices, and gathering information from multiple systems before they can confidently close the books.
That’s why many real estate organizations turn to accounts payable (AP) automation providers like AvidXchange. By centralizing invoice and payment activity and providing visibility into individual payment details, AvidXchange helps reduce the manual work that often slows down bank reconciliation, audit preparation, and month-end close.
Key Takeaways
- Real estate finance teams often manage invoices and payments across multiple entities, making month-end close especially complicated.
- Some payment providers combine dozens of supplier payments into a single bank withdrawal, which forces accounting teams to track down which invoices were included before they can complete reconciliation.
- Payment-level visibility helps finance teams spend less time researching transactions and more time analyzing results.
- By switching to AvidXchange, one customer reduced its month-end accrual process from a day and a half to just 30 minutes.
What Is the Month-End Close Process for Real Estate Finance Teams?
For real estate finance teams, month-end close starts with a simple goal: finalize the books and produce accurate financial reports across dozens (or even hundreds) of properties.
To get there, accounting teams typically spend the final days of the month on the following tasks:
- reviewing invoices
- confirming supplier payments
- reconciling bank activity
- preparing accruals
- validating financial data before reporting deadlines arrive
Depending on the size of your company’s portfolio, that work may involve coordinating with property managers, reviewing activity across multiple entities, and ensuring expenses are recorded in the correct period.
When everything comes together smoothly, month-end close provides a clear picture of how each property and the portfolio as a whole performed during the previous month.
Why Does Month-End Close Take So Long in Real Estate Accounting?
Month-end close often takes longer in real estate accounting because the work is high-volume and highly distributed.
A real estate finance team may be managing invoices for repairs, landscaping, utilities, maintenance, security, insurance, marketing, professional services, and capital projects across many locations. Those invoices may come from different suppliers, require different approval paths, and hit different properties at different times.
And for companies with decentralized systems, finance teams may also need to pull information from multiple bank accounts, ERPs, and AP systems before they can confidently close the books.
I’ve Automated My AP. Why is Month-End Close Still So Manual?
AP automation is supposed to reduce manual work. But some AP automation providers just shift some of that time-consuming manual work to the end of the month.
One common culprit is lump-sum payments. Instead of debiting each supplier payment individually, some payment providers combine multiple payments into a single lump-sum withdrawal from your bank account. It simplifies payment processing behind the scenes, but it can create additional work for your accounting team during bank reconciliation and month-end close.
Let’s say you’re responsible for closing the books across 75 apartment communities. During bank reconciliation, you notice a large withdrawal from the account. The payment has already been processed, but now someone needs to determine which landscaping invoices, maintenance repairs, utility payments, and supplier invoices were included in that batch before the transaction can be properly reconciled. It can add hours of extra manual work each month to your team’s plate.
How Does AvidXchange Reduce Manual Work During Month-End Close?
AvidXchange helps reduce manual reconciliation work by providing payment-level visibility instead of requiring accounting teams to untangle large lump-sum withdrawals at month-end.
When a payment is processed through AvidXchange, finance teams can more easily trace that transaction back to a specific supplier, invoice, and property. Instead of logging into multiple systems and pulling reports to determine what was included in a payment batch, accounting teams have a clearer view of payment activity during bank reconciliation.
Payment visibility helps finance teams do more than speed up month-end close. When payment activity is easier to trace, finance teams are more prepared during audit season and can more quickly answer questions about transactions. It can also improve reporting, giving finance teams greater confidence in the data behind their financial analysis.
Case Study: How Speedway Motorsports Reduced Its Month-End Accrual Process From a Day and a Half to 30 Minutes
Speedway Motorsports operates 11 racetracks across the U.S., including Charlotte Motor Speedway and Bristol Motor Speedway, each with its own suppliers, invoices, and operating expenses.
Before implementing AvidXchange, paper-based and decentralized processes made it difficult to identify outstanding invoices, prepare accruals, and understand spending across locations.
“When I started, each track pretty much operated as its own independent entity,” said Sara Grafals, Senior Vice President of Regional Finance. “So visibility across the tracks? None.”
With AvidXchange, Speedway Motorsports centralized its AP data into a single system. One of the biggest improvements was in their month-end accrual process: the workload dropped from a day and a half to just 30 minutes. That’s more time and money that can be spent on improving the fan experience.
Watch the video to learn more about their results:
Speedway Motorsports’ results highlight a challenge many real estate finance teams face: it’s difficult to close the books when invoice and payment data are spread across multiple systems and locations. By centralizing AP activity and providing better visibility into individual transactions, the company was able to spend less time gathering information and more time acting on it.
| Result | Impact |
|---|---|
| Month-end accrual process | Reduced from a day and a half to 30 minutes |
| Annual time savings | 200+ hours saved |
| Annual savings | More than $300,000 |
| Supplier spend visibility | Gained insight into company-wide supplier spending patterns |
| Supplier relationships | Better positioned to leverage purchasing power and strengthen vendor partnerships |
| Business impact | Reinvested time and savings into improving the fan experience |
Frequently Asked Questions About Month-End Close and AP Automation
Why is bank reconciliation important during month-end close?
Bank reconciliation helps confirm that bank activity matches accounting records. For real estate finance teams, accurate bank reconciliation is essential for validating cash activity, identifying discrepancies, and preparing reliable financial reports.
What’s the difference between lump-sum payments and line-item payment details?
Some payment providers combine multiple supplier payments into a single withdrawal from your bank account. This is often called a lump-sum payment or batched payment. While the payment may process successfully, accounting teams may need to reference additional reports to determine which invoices and suppliers were included in the withdrawal.
AvidXchange takes a different approach by providing line-item payment details, which means you can easily trace each payment back to a specific supplier and invoice. Instead of seeing a single withdrawal representing dozens of payments, finance teams have greater visibility into individual transactions.
Can AP automation speed up month-end close?
Yes. AP automation can help speed up month-end close by reducing manual invoice processing, improving payment visibility, streamlining approvals, and making AP data easier to access for reconciliation, accruals, and reporting.
Why does AP automation still feel manual for some finance teams?
AP automation can still feel manual if it only automates part of the process. For example, some providers automate invoice routing or payment delivery but still require accounting teams to manually research payment status, reconcile bank activity, or gather supporting documentation during month-end close.
AvidXchange is designed to reduce that downstream work by providing greater visibility into invoices, payments, and supplier activity throughout the process. Instead of spending time tracking down information at month-end, finance teams can more easily access the details they need for reconciliation, reporting, and audit preparation.
Important Notice: The information presented on this page is based on research and intended for educational purposes only. Anyone seeking to follow the information contained herein should consult their own advisors and conduct their own research prior to doing so. AvidXchange, Inc. and its affiliates disclaim any and all liability resulting from reliance on the information contained herein.
AvidXchange is a licensed money transmitter for B2B payments in the United States, licensed as a Money Transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services, as well as all other states that require AvidXchange to have a license.