BloomSpec

Financial Close

The record-to-report problem space: verifying that an organisation's own accounting records agree with independent external evidence, that every balance can be substantiated, that every entry was properly authorised, and that the whole process completes on schedule with an audit trail. Distinct from the ERP, which records transactions but does not verify them.

218 pages

Agent patterns17

Accrual Preparation Agent
The best-chosen agent target in the domain. Schedule-backed accounts — accruals, prepaids, fixed assets — have no transaction matching underneath them, so…
Audit Evidence Assembly Agent
Almost entirely retrieval and assembly across records that already exist and are already linked. The finance team's time goes into locating and packaging…
Balance Movement Analysis Agent
Every material movement needs an explanation before reporting, and writing them is repetitive assembly of the same evidence. Detection is statistical; the…
Close Coordination Agent
Close coordination is a project management problem wearing accounting clothes. The critical path is computable deterministically; what is missing is the layer…
Control Documentation Agent
Whether a control description is substantively adequate against SOX or another framework is a judgement no rules engine can make. A field-presence check is…
Elimination Readiness Agent
A strict dependency chain — breaks block eliminations, eliminations block consolidation, consolidation blocks publication — and the failure surfaces on close…
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AI opportunities51

Accrual amount prediction
Predicting the expected range for a recurring accrual from history, and flagging a proposed entry that falls outside it.
Agentic accrual preparation
Gathering the inputs for a recurring accrual — prior period entry, current activity, relevant schedule — computing the amount, drafting the entry with…
Agentic exception investigation
Given an exception and a set of tools, deciding autonomously which checks to run in what order — prior resolutions for this account, manager notes, anomaly…
Agentic reconciliation preparation
Autonomously drafting a reconciliation: retrieving both balances, rolling up open exceptions as reconciling items, testing whether they fully explain the gap,…
Audit response drafting
Generating a response to an auditor query from the underlying evidence, with the supporting records cited.
Auto-suggested match rules
Detecting that the same manual resolution keeps recurring, and proposing a new rule that would auto-match that pattern in future — reducing the…
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Capabilities36

Account Master & Risk Classification
A register of every ledger account requiring reconciliation, carrying its owner, reviewer, required frequency, materiality threshold and risk classification.…
Approval Workflow & Segregation of Duties
Routing entries for authorisation according to type, amount, entity and risk, enforcing that the preparer cannot approve their own entry, supporting multiple…
Auditor Access & Self-Service
Granting internal and external auditors controlled, read-only access to reconciliations, entries, evidence and approval history so they can retrieve what they…
Auto-Reconciliation & Materiality Thresholds
Automatically clearing and certifying accounts where the ledger balance agrees with the supporting balance within a defined materiality threshold, or where the…
Automated Calculation & Recurring Entries
Computing entry amounts from a schedule or formula held inside the system rather than in a spreadsheet, and posting repeating entries — depreciation, rent…
Balance Ingestion & Substantiation Sources
Retrieving the general ledger balance for each account and the corresponding independent balance from whichever source can substantiate it — bank statement for…
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Entities22

Account
A general ledger account within an entity, carrying the attributes that govern how it is reconciled: risk class, materiality threshold, owner, reviewer,…
Account balance
The ledger balance and the independent supporting balance for an account at a period end, with the source of the supporting figure.
Approval rule
Routing logic determining who must approve what, by value band, entity, account type and entry type.
Audit event
An immutable record of an action: actor, action, target, timestamp, and the before and after state where relevant.
Close task
A unit of period-end work with an owner, due business day, dependencies and completion status, optionally linked to a completion event elsewhere in the…
Control
A documented internal control: its objective, description, owner, frequency, framework mapping and test procedure.
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Glossary28

Accrual
An estimated cost recorded for something consumed but not yet invoiced.
Accrual accounting
Recording revenue and costs when they are earned or incurred, rather than when cash moves.
Certification
A named person formally attesting that an account balance is correct as at a date.
Exception
A transaction the matching rules could not clear, requiring a human to investigate.
Financial close
Finalising the accounting records for a period so results can be reported.
Flux analysis
Examining how account balances moved between periods and explaining significant changes.
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KPIs22

Accrual estimation accuracy
How far accrual estimates diverge from the actual amounts that replace them.
Aged reconciling items
Value and count of reconciling items outstanding beyond policy thresholds.
Auto-match rate
Share of transactions cleared automatically by rules, without reaching a human.
Balance sheet value certified by close day N
Proportion of total balance sheet value sitting in accounts that have been certified, measured at a fixed close day.
Break resolution time
Elapsed time from an intercompany break being detected to both sides agreeing.
Close-cycle duration
Elapsed business days from period end to the point the group authorises publication of results.
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Personas7

Chief Financial Officer
Personally attesting to the financial statements. Authorises publication.
Entity Financial Controller
The accuracy of Northfield Retail's balance sheet. Reviews and certifies reconciliations prepared by shared services, and approves journal entries above the…
External Auditor
Testing whether Northfield's controls over financial reporting operated effectively, and whether sampled balances are supported.
Finance Systems Lead
The platform running, integrating with two ERPs, and the configuration within it being correct and controlled.
Group Financial Controller
The group close running to schedule across four entities, and the consolidated numbers being right before they reach the CFO.
Shared Services Accountant
Preparing reconciliations and investigating exceptions for accounts across all three operating entities. Prepares; never approves.
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Products8

Accurate Reconciliation
End-to-end account reconciliation and certification handling multiple transaction types and financial instruments, integrating transaction-level and…
Adra
Suite covering the same core capabilities scaled and priced for leaner finance teams. Adra Matcher is the transaction matching component.
Cadency
Flagship record-to-report platform for large enterprises. Modules span transaction matching, account reconciliation and certification, journal entry, close…
CadencyDirect
ServiceNow-integrated variant of Cadency.
DATAFlow
Data acquisition and integration layer that pulls and normalises data from source systems to feed the other products.
Frontier Reconciliation
End-to-end reconciliation and certification, historically strong in banking and financial services.
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Scenarios6

A 60.00 cash shortage, investigated and closed
The same store, the same day, but the cash tender does not tie. Follows the exception from detection through investigation, escalation, write-off approval, its…
A card sale from swipe to certified balance
Follows one day's card takings at a single store through every system it passes and every hand it touches, from the moment the customer pays to the moment an…
A month-end close, viewed from above
Steps back from individual transactions to follow the close itself: the calendar generating, tasks completing in dependency order, one task slipping, the…
An accrual across a period boundary
Follows an estimated utilities expense from the judgement that creates it, through the close that relies on it, to the reversal that releases it and the…
An audit request traced backwards to source
Runs the chain in reverse. The external auditor samples one account and asks a series of increasingly specific questions; each is answered by retrieval rather…
An intercompany break across two ERPs and two currencies
Follows a shipment from the parent to the UK subsidiary through both sets of books, the currency restatement, the break, three days of correspondence, the…

Solution areas6

Account Reconciliation
Proving that the balance of a general ledger account is correct by comparing it against independent supporting evidence, itemising and explaining any…
Audit & Compliance
Documenting, testing and evidencing the internal controls over financial reporting, and making that evidence retrievable for internal and external auditors.…
Close Task Management
Coordinating the hundreds of interdependent tasks that must complete in sequence for a period to close on schedule. A project management problem rather than a…
Intercompany Accounting
Recording, reconciling and eliminating transactions between legal entities within the same group, so that internal activity does not inflate the consolidated…
Journal Entry Management
Preparing, validating, authorising and posting the entries that change the ledger — particularly manual entries, where a person directly alters the financial…
Transaction Matching & Daily Reconciliation
Comparing individual transactions across two or more independent records — the general ledger, bank statements, point-of-sale data, card processor settlement…

Vendors5

BlackLine
The principal enterprise competitor in financial close management, with a broader module set and deeper native ERP integration.
ERP-native (SAP / Oracle / Workday)
The baseline alternative: doing the work inside the ERP itself rather than in a dedicated close platform. Not a vendor as such, but the most common competitor…
FloQast
Close management vendor targeting the mid-market, generally regarded as lighter-weight and faster to deploy than the enterprise platforms.
Oracle ARCS
Oracle's Account Reconciliation Cloud Service, an ERP-vendor-native reconciliation offering.
Trintech
Financial close and account reconciliation software vendor, positioning itself as 'the trusted AI platform for governed autonomous finance'. Core competence is…

Verticals10

Banking
Retail and commercial banks reconciling payment rails, deposits, loans, settlements and central bank activity.
Credit Unions
Member-owned deposit institutions, essentially banking at smaller scale with a distinct regulator.
Financial Services
Broader financial institutions including capital markets, asset servicing and specialty lenders.
Healthcare & Human Services
Providers reconciling patient payments, insurer remittances and the adjustments between billed and collected.
Hospitality & Travel
Hotels, travel operators and venues reconciling folios, distribution channels and high card volume.
Industrial Manufacturing
Manufacturers reconciling inventory, goods received, production consumption and multi-entity trade.
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