For many Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) finance teams, closing the books isn’t just a deadline—it’s a recurring challenge. With complex ownership structures, multi-entity consolidations, and high-volume journal vouchers (JVs), the end-to-end periodic close often feels like a maze of manual tasks, version control headaches, and last-minute surprises.
At the centre of these challenges are journal entries—the linchpin of every financial close. Whether it’s recurring accruals, reclassifications, or one-time adjusting entries, journals are both high-impact and high-friction. Despite their importance, journal entries are often the slowest-moving piece in the close puzzle.
The Journal Bottleneck Is Real
Based on industry observations, journal entry bottlenecks are a major contributor to close delays. Common challenges include:
- Manual Overload: High-volume recurring entries like lease income, common area maintenance (CAM) recoveries, or interest accruals still require significant manual effort. Each manual touchpoint increases the risk of errors and slows down processing.
- Spreadsheet Chaos: Relying on disconnected spreadsheets makes it nearly impossible to track statuses, approvals, or history in real time, leading to missed steps and duplicate entries.
- No Standardized Workflows: Inconsistent JV formats, varying approvers, and ad hoc processes mean time is lost clarifying responsibilities instead of progressing toward close.
- ERP Friction: Manual ERP posting isn’t just tedious—it delays downstream processes and makes real-time reporting nearly impossible.
- Email Bottlenecks: Email-based approvals are a black hole. JVs get stuck in inboxes, approvals are delayed, and there’s no audit trail—just a mess of threads.
- No Visibility or Oversight: Without dashboards or alerts, there’s no way to track which entries are pending, rejected, or approved, leading to missed deadlines or duplicate effort.
In a REIT environment—where JV complexity, lease-level income, and cross-entity reporting are the norm—these bottlenecks multiply fast.
Why It Hurts the REIT Close
For REITs, the impact of journal entry delays goes beyond inconvenience. When JVs are stuck in limbo, it:
- Stalls downstream reconciliations, consolidations, and board reporting.
- Increases the chance of missed or incorrect partner allocations.
- Leaves the business exposed to compliance risks and audit findings.
- Saps the finance team’s time, pulling focus from higher-value strategic work.
Manual journal entry processes also introduce unnecessary cycle-time volatility—the close timeline swings wildly based on effort, not execution.
The AI-powered Automation Advantage: Reimagine Journal Management
REITs that are embracing close automation powered by artificial intelligence (AI) are seeing transformative results in their journal processes. With an AI-driven journal management solution, you can:
- Achieve up to 90% straight-through processing for recurring and rule-based journals.
- Eliminate spreadsheets with centralized, standardized templates and workflows.
- Route entries via automated, threshold-based approvals—no more inbox chasing.
- Post directly to the ERP from one system, with full audit trail and control.
- Track all entries—submitted, pending, rejected—in one dashboard.
Because automation surfaces issues early, you also reduce review effort and build confidence in your numbers from day one.
From Bottlenecks to Breakthroughs
At JIFFY.ai, we believe the journal entry process shouldn’t hold you back—it should push you forward. Whether you’re managing 100 properties or scaling across portfolios, the ability to automate journal creation, validation, routing, and posting unlocks new levels of speed and accuracy.
In fact, global REITs using our AI-powered Journal Management solution have cut multiple days off their monthly close process by streamlining journal entry workflows. It’s not just automation for efficiency—it’s transformation for scale.
Ready to Break Free?
If you’re tired of firefighting through the close or struggling with JV approvals at the eleventh hour, let’s talk. We’ll show you how leading REITs are automating their journal process—and reclaiming control of their close with the power of AI.