Most automation projects fail before they start. They ask how to automate this, and the answer is a copy of the old process, in software, with every step preserved.
The process is not the work
A finance process is a fossil. Every step in it was once a sensible response to a human limit. Someone forgot, so a reminder got added. Someone keyed a number wrong, so a check got added. Someone was on leave, so a handoff got added. Years later nobody remembers why, but everyone still does it.
Put software on top of that and you get the same fossil, faster.
Ask why like a child
A child asks why five times in a row and gets annoyed at the fifth answer. Do that to a month-end close.
Why export this report? To paste it into a sheet. Why the sheet? So the manager can review the totals. Why review the totals? Because the export used to be wrong. Why was it wrong? Because someone typed it. Why did someone type it?
Nobody types it anymore. The step stays.
Most steps end at that fifth why. They exist because a human once had to remember, re-type or chase. Those are the human-only steps. They do not need automating. They need deleting.
The order matters
The method runs in four steps, and the order is the whole point.
Map every step. Not the chart on the wall. The real one: who opens what, clicks what, waits for whom.
Delete the human-only ones. The list is usually longer than anyone expects, and the room goes quiet when they see it.
Wire the machine. What is left is the pure path: the steps that would exist even if nobody ever forgot anything. Give those to the machine, inside the tools the team already pays for. The machine drafts, checks and chases.
Review and sign. This step never gets deleted. A person reads what the machine produced and puts their name to it. That is where judgment lives, and it is the only place it needs to.
What changes
The close gets shorter. Not because the software is fast, but because there is less to do. The reminders stop coming from a tired person at six in the evening and start coming from a machine that does not get tired. The accountant gets back the hours that went on chasing and spends them on the few hours a month that carry the judgment.
Delete first. Then build. Never the other way round.
If a step only exists because a human used to forget, is it a process, or is it a scar?