[wtvanhest]

Most decisions are made prior to entering data in to the system. One area that is an example are accruals. You must wait until the end of the month to know what invoices haven't hit the accounting ledger to then know what accruals to enter. It gets complex because invoices are not standardized and it typically requires a level of judgment as to whether they should be entered.

Then there are other transactions. Is this capex entry really capex or should it be opex? Well, we need a meeting with a technical accountant.

There have been a lot of steps toward automating accounting, and most (lets say 95%) of transactions are instant and require no intervention.

The 5% remaining require human intervention. In order to close the books faster you would need to either figure out a way to automate the rest (really hard) or hire a bigger finance and accounting staff who would then be idol most of the month.

I dont work in accounting, I work in FP&A, so I am sure there are other examples I dont know about.