General accounting: accounts justified through the month, and a close that does not start from scratch.
General accounting keeps the company’s books: it brings in the flows from every department, posts the closing entries, justifies the balance sheet and prepares the tax returns. A large part of the work consists of reconciling, checking and documenting data it did not produce. That is the part automation lightens, while responsibility for the accounts stays with the accountant.
The role
At the centre of every flow, guarantor of the accounts and the returns.
General accounting receives entries from sales, purchasing, payroll, the bank and stock, and checks that they form accurate and complete accounts. It posts the closing entries, justifies each balance sheet account, prepares the tax returns and answers the statutory auditors. In a mid-sized company, it is a small team that depends on the quality of other departments’ data, and often discovers their errors at the close.
Day to day
A typical day.
- MorningCheck the overnight loads: sales, bank, payroll, subsidiaries’ data, and spot missing journals.
- MorningTick off bank statements and deal with unreconciled transactions.
- AfternoonPost sundry entries, reclassify incorrect postings and clear suspense accounts.
- Every weekAnswer questions from management control, internal auditors and operational teams about an entry or a balance.
- Month-endPost cut-off entries, justify balance sheet accounts and close the trial balance.
- Every quarterPrepare VAT returns and tax items, then the files for the statutory auditors.
The objectives
What the role is measured on.
- Month-end and year-end close lead time
- Balance sheet accounts justified at each close
- Suspense account balances
- Manual entries and reclassifications
- Points raised by the statutory auditors
- Compliance with filing deadlines
Indicators are named, never quantified: levels depend on each company, and the diagnostic measures them.
Day to day
The problems that come up most.
Flows that arrive incomplete
Sales, payroll, bank, stock: each load has its own formats and failures, and a missing day is discovered at the close.
Suspense accounts that keep growing
Unidentified transactions pile up for lack of time to investigate them, then have to be cleared in a hurry.
Justification rebuilt at every close
Justification files are rebuilt month after month in spreadsheets, with no direct link to the trial balance.
Cut-off entries estimated by hand
Prepaid expenses, accrued income, provisions: each calculation lives in a different file, with its own assumptions.
Knowledge that leaves with people
Posting rules and close procedures sit in a few accountants’ heads; one departure disrupts the next close.
An audit that ties up the team
The statutory auditors’ requests arrive in batches, each document has to be found in several tools, and the team stops producing during the audit.
By sector
One role, several realities.
- Fashion and luxury
Many entities and countries, own boutiques, department store concessions and wholesale: foreign-currency sales flows, intercompany transactions and the valuation of past-collection stock weigh on the close.
- Retail
Till journals for every store every day, many payment methods, vouchers and gift cards to track as liabilities, and commercial leases to account for under the standards applicable to the group.
- Cosmetics and beauty
Sales to distributors, commercial cooperation fees and retailers’ debit notes, raw material and finished goods stock to value, and part of the business in exports with its own VAT rules.
- B2B distribution and wholesale
High volumes of purchase and sales entries, year-end rebates to accrue on both sides, trading stock and cycle counts: the quality of the loads determines the quality of the close.
- Construction and property
Percentage-of-completion accounting for projects, retentions, progress billing and subcontracting with VAT reverse charge; on the property management side, accounts kept for each building separately from the company’s own.
- Industry
Valuation of stock and work in progress, heavy industrial fixed assets and their components, investment grants and tax credits to track over time.
- Pharma and healthcare
Stock valued by batch with its write-downs, research and development costs to treat under accounting rules, royalties and licence agreements, and frequent audits.
What changes
Automate the task, keep the judgement.
What gets automated
- Checking the daily loads (sales, bank, payroll, subsidiaries), by a tool that flags missing or inconsistent journals the same day.
- Bank reconciliation of routine transactions, with only the differences presented to the accountant.
- Recurring and cut-off entries calculated from their sources (contracts, schedules, receipts), ready for approval.
- Balance sheet justification files, prepared at each close from the trial balance and the supporting documents.
- Investigation and proposed posting of suspense account items, by an AI agent that reads descriptions and documents.
What stays human
- Closing entries that call for judgement: provisions, write-downs, estimates.
- Approval of the trial balance, the annual accounts and the tax returns, which are still produced in the accounting software.
- Dialogue with the statutory auditors, the tax authority and the finance department.
Use cases
How to automate, case by case.
Each case starts from a question leadership teams ask. The starting point, what gets automated, the tools involved, and what stays in the teams’ hands.
How to automate bank reconciliation?
- Today
- Every morning, the accountant downloads each bank’s statements and ticks off transactions against entries, often in a spreadsheet. Grouped transfers, fees, commissions and poorly described direct debits stay unreconciled and pile up until the close.
- What gets automated
- Statements arrive automatically in the accounting software through bank communication channels. A tool matches transactions with entries using amount, date and reference rules, including one transfer against several invoices. An AI agent proposes a posting for unmatched transactions, based on their description and history.
- What stays human
- The accountant approves the proposals for unreconciled transactions and posts the adjusting entries.
- accounting software
- bank communication
- reconciliation tool
- AI classification agent
How to automate the calculation of prepaid expenses and deferred income?
- Today
- Insurance, rent, subscriptions, maintenance, contracts invoiced in advance: at each close, the accountant reopens a spreadsheet listing the invoices to spread and recalculates the share for the period. New contracts are added when someone remembers.
- What gets automated
- At posting, each invoice covering a period is identified by its nature, description or dates, with the help of an AI agent that reads the period mentions. A spreading schedule is created automatically, and prepaid expense and deferred income entries are calculated at each close, ready for approval.
- What stays human
- The accountant approves the proposed spreading and settles invoices whose period is unclear.
- accounting software
- AI agent for document reading
- schedule tool
How to automate balance sheet account justification before the close?
- Today
- For each balance sheet account, the accountant rebuilds a justification file: breakdown of the balance, documents, explanation of differences. The work is redone at each close, and rarely monitored accounts are only looked at year-end.
- What gets automated
- A tool linked to the trial balance prepares the justification file for each account: unmatched lines, reconciliation with the source tool (bank, fixed assets, payroll, subcontracting), change since the previous close. Accounts whose balance is not explained are listed with their amount, and each file is approved and kept.
- What stays human
- The accountant explains the remaining differences, and the chief accountant signs off the account review.
- accounting software
- account justification tool
- reconciliation tool
How to automate fixed asset tracking and depreciation calculation?
- Today
- Capital expenditure invoices are picked out by hand among expenses, asset records are created late and disposals are not reported. The fixed asset register is hard to reconcile with the accounts.
- What gets automated
- An AI agent spots, as invoices are read, those likely to be capitalised, based on their nature, amount and ongoing investment projects. The asset record is prepared with its account, useful life and components, and disposals reported by operational teams are attached. Depreciation is still calculated in the accounting software’s fixed asset module.
- What stays human
- The accountant decides whether to capitalise, and on the useful life and depreciation method.
- accounting software and fixed asset module
- AI agent for document reading
- capital expenditure tracking tool
How to automate the clearing of suspense accounts?
- Today
- Unidentified receipts, payments without an invoice, load differences: suspense accounts fill up during the month. Investigating them means asking treasury, sales administration or purchasing, and old balances end up being written off without explanation.
- What gets automated
- An AI agent analyses each pending line: description, amount, likely third party, open invoices of the same amount, similar past transactions. It proposes a posting or identifies the department holding the information and sends it a precise request. Old lines and their amounts are tracked in a dashboard until cleared.
- What stays human
- The accountant approves each posting, and the chief accountant decides how to treat unexplained balances.
- accounting software
- AI classification agent
- messaging
- management reporting tool (BI)
How to automate the preparation of VAT returns?
- Today
- The accountant extracts the VAT accounts, checks consistency with revenue, investigates differences and fills in the return. Reverse charges, intra-EU transactions and adjustments require manual rework.
- What gets automated
- Before each return, a tool checks consistency between revenue, output VAT, input VAT and e-invoicing data, and lists entries with a doubtful VAT code. It prepares the bridge between the accounts and the return. The return is still produced from the accounting or tax software.
- What stays human
- The chief accountant approves and files the return, and is answerable for its accuracy.
- accounting or tax software
- data control tool
- e-invoicing platform
How to automate the preparation of the file for the statutory auditors?
- Today
- The statutory auditors send their request list: trial balances, justifications, contracts, confirmations, document samples. The team gathers each item from different tools, by e-mail, and tracks requests in a spreadsheet.
- What gets automated
- The request list is loaded into a shared space, and each request is assigned to an owner with a due date. Recurring items (trial balances, general ledgers, justifications, fixed asset registers) are uploaded automatically from the accounting software. Sample documents are retrieved by a tool connected to the invoice archive.
- What stays human
- The chief accountant answers the statutory auditors’ questions and arbitrates the proposed adjustments.
- shared document space
- accounting software
- electronic document archive
- workflow tool
How to automate the analytical review of the trial balance from one close to the next?
- Today
- Before closing the accounts, the chief accountant compares the trial balance with the previous month and the previous year to spot abnormal changes. The work is done by eye across every account, and anomalies slip through when time runs short.
- What gets automated
- At each close, a tool compares each account with its references (previous month, same month last year, budget) and flags unusual changes, accounts with an unusual sign and new balances. An AI agent drafts a first explanation from the month’s entries, which the accountant checks.
- What stays human
- The chief accountant judges whether a change is normal or requires a correction before the close.
- accounting software
- management reporting tool (BI)
- AI analysis agent
How to automate the collection of information for the notes to the annual accounts?
- Today
- Off-balance-sheet commitments, headcount, remuneration, debt maturities, leases, subsequent events: the information for the notes comes from treasury, HR, legal and management. It is requested by e-mail at each year-end close, in different formats.
- What gets automated
- Each note is described with its sources and its owner. Data available in the tools (loan schedule, payroll headcount, fixed asset register) is loaded automatically, and a form collects qualitative information from each department. Amounts are checked against the trial balance before drafting.
- What stays human
- The chief accountant drafts and approves the notes, and the finance department closes the accounts.
- accounting software
- payroll software
- treasury management tool
- online forms
How to make the French audit file of accounting entries (FEC) reliable before a tax audit?
- Today
- The audit file of accounting entries is generated by the accounting software when the tax authority requests it. Anomalies (entries without documents, inconsistent dates, empty descriptions, gaps in numbering) are then discovered, at the worst moment.
- What gets automated
- A tool checks the file at each close, not only when an audit is announced: format compliance, continuous numbering, date consistency, presence of document references, agreement with the trial balance. It also flags atypical entries, such as those posted outside the period or by unusual users.
- What stays human
- The chief accountant corrects anomalies in the accounting software and is answerable for the file’s compliance.
- accounting software
- data control tool
Questions from the teams
What teams look to improve.
- Which general accounting tasks should be automated first?
- Start with what comes back every day or every month without judgement: checking loads, bank reconciliation, recurring entries, justification files. These are tasks whose rules can be written down and whose result can be checked. Entries that require an estimate or an interpretation come later, and remain approved by the accountant.
- Can AI post accounting entries?
- It can prepare entries: read a document, propose an account and an analytical axis, calculate a recurring entry. Posting stays in the accounting software, after approval by an authorised person, and each entry keeps a trace of its document and its author. Responsibility for the accounts is not delegated to a tool.
- How to keep a reliable audit trail when automating?
- Each automatic entry must be traceable to its source, to the rule that produced it and to the person who approved it. Rules are versioned and dated, and exceptions handled by hand are commented. The statutory auditors can then audit the rule once rather than every entry.
- How to make posting rules and the chart of accounts more reliable?
- Write the posting rules by type of expense and income, with examples, and link them to the chart of accounts and the analytical axes. A control tool then compares past postings with these rules and flags recurring deviations. Decisions to change the chart of accounts remain with the accounting management.
- How to import sundry journal entries automatically from a file?
- Set a single file template, with checks on import: balanced entry, existing accounts, mandatory axes, open period. An integration tool loads the file, rejects non-compliant lines with the reason and keeps the source file as supporting evidence. The accountant approves the imported entry before posting.
- How to manage several entities and currencies without multiplying re-keying?
- First harmonise the chart of accounts, the axes and the close calendar across entities. Intercompany transactions can then be generated on one side and posted on the other, and exchange differences are calculated from reference rates loaded automatically. Translation choices and revaluation entries remain approved by the accountant.
- How to automate the posting of exchange differences?
- Load the reference rates chosen by the company every day, then let the accounting software calculate differences on settlements and period-end revaluations. A check compares the differences posted with treasury’s foreign-currency positions. The choice of exchange-rate policy and its documentation remain human.
- How to document accounting procedures so that they survive departures?
- Describe each close task with its purpose, source, calculation, check and owner, and link it to the close task list. When a task is automated, its documentation describes the rule applied and how to check it. An AI agent can help draft these sheets from existing files, which the accountant reviews.
Related roles
02 — Getting started
Describe what’s holding your teams back.
A first conversation to qualify your need. Then a scoped diagnostic: the scope, the solution, the estimate.
Discuss your projectReply within 48 business hours.