IMA's 2020 Accounts Closing Benchmarks Report seeks to assess the practices of Finance departments around the accounts closing process in India. The benchmarks have been developed from detailed process data and metrics obtained from 125 India-based organisations across sectors and industry types. The study covers metrics related to practices around staffing, processes, timelines, costs, technology, as well as implementation with respect to the accounts closing activity.

The 93-page report covers the following areas:

	Identify areas of over- and under-spend in the close process
	Understand opportunities for cost reduction or performance improvement
	Compare your close process activity level performance, process automation, staff allocation against others in the same sector or size band
	Establish actionable yardsticks for CFOs that can feed into business planning
	Evolve the close process timelines in line with leading industry practices

In addition to size, workforce, sector and ownership splits, detailed 8-way cross-tabulations are made on the basis of the following parameters:

	Best-in-class (BIC)/Worst-in-class (WIC): The top 25%/bottom 25% of companies in terms of days taken to close accounts.
	Spending: The top 25%/median/bottom 25% companies in terms of spends on the accounts closing process as a percentage of revenue or the overall Finance budget.
	Number of subsidiaries to consolidate for reporting/review of accounts.
	Number of cities in which Finance/Accounts operations are carried out.