Buy-and-build strategies are usually judged on the deals. The integrations get less attention until month-end starts to slip: one more entity, two more days, until the group is closing in week three and the board is looking at numbers that are already a month old.
Every acquisition adds three things
A ledger, with its own chart of accounts.
A calendar, with its own close timetable.
A habit — the way that team has always done it.
Systems migration gets the budget, but it is rarely the first problem. The first problem is that the numbers don’t mean the same thing in every entity.
The integration sequence
Map every entity to one chart of accounts before touching systems.
Set one close calendar with daily checkpoints.
Automate intercompany matching early; it is where most days are lost.
Migrate systems last, onto definitions that already agree.
Keep the close under a week while you grow
The test of an integration is not the day the systems go live. It is whether the next acquisition adds days to the close or not. Get the sequence right and it doesn’t.
Integration is finished when the next acquisition no longer adds days to the close.
From the work · PRV-018
Sample data
Month-end close ·
Multi-site healthcare services group
Before
18 days
−12 days
After
6 days
After four acquisitions the close fell from eighteen working days to six, with an interim finance lead through integration.
Source
Group finance close calendar, January vs July 2025.
Illustrative sample data. Provan, its people, clients, figures and sources are fictional and shown for demonstration only.