Most close problems don't announce themselves clearly. They accumulate: a reconciliation that didn't quite get finished, an entry that went in late, a variance that nobody had time to investigate. By month three or four, you have a close process that's technically producing numbers – but slowly, inconsistently, and with enough open questions that nobody fully trusts them.
The most common root cause isn't a bad process. It's a missing ownership layer – a Senior Accountant who takes end-to-end accountability for the close so that nobody else has to.
Owning the close isn't the same as participating in it. A Senior Accountant who owns the close drives it: setting the timeline, assigning tasks, following up on blockers, reviewing Staff Accountant work in real time, handling complex entries themselves, and delivering clean financials to the Controller or CFO for final review.
Finance operations benchmarks show that companies with a Senior Accountant explicitly owning close average 6–8 business days versus 12–15 days for teams without that ownership. The difference is almost entirely accountability, not headcount.
The GL is the source of truth for every financial output. A Senior Accountant who actively maintains it – coding consistency, catching misclassifications, resolving reconciling items promptly – keeps the foundation clean so that close, reporting, and audit prep all work from accurate data. MAVI Senior Accountants average five-plus years of US accounting experience and are vetted specifically for GL ownership.
Standard accruals, prepaid amortization, depreciation, and payroll allocations are Senior Accountant territory. So are the more technical entries: ASC 842 lease modifications, intercompany eliminations, and period-end adjustments requiring US GAAP judgment. These can't be delegated without supervision – errors propagate directly into the financial statements.
A Senior Accountant who treats reconciliations as quality control, not compliance box-checking, investigates and resolves when a balance sheet account doesn't tie rather than carrying the item forward. That habit is what keeps the close from accumulating problems that surface painfully at audit.
Preparing the P&L, balance sheet, and cash flow statement in a format that's accurate and ready for CFO review is a Senior Accountant deliverable. When this falls to the Controller or CFO, the accounting layer isn't doing what it should. When it's being done poorly by a Staff Accountant, the same problem exists with different symptoms.
Finance leaders who've placed Senior Accountants through MAVI describe the same pattern: within the first two close cycles, the process stabilizes. Tasks complete on time, errors get caught before final review, and the CFO receives financials that need commentary, not investigation. Book a call to hire a Senior Accountant in as fast as five days.
Four to five years of US accounting experience – enough to have owned or co-owned multiple complete close cycles, handled technically complex entries independently, and developed the judgment to catch non-obvious errors. MAVI Senior Accountants average five-plus years and are vetted specifically for close cycle ownership.
Yes. Multi-entity close management, including intercompany eliminations and consolidated reporting, is within scope for an experienced Senior Accountant. MAVI's network includes Senior Accountants with direct multi-entity experience.
Clean, reconciled financial statements – P&L, balance sheet, cash flow – with supporting schedules for all material accounts, a variance summary, and resolution of any open items from the prior close. The package should be ready for Controller or CFO review, not for investigation.
QuickBooks Online, NetSuite, and Xero are most common. Sage Intacct is increasingly relevant for multi-entity environments. MAVI Senior Accountants are vetted for ERP fluency specific to your stack.