The percentage of monthly period closes completed by the internal deadline over the trailing 12 months. Below 90% signals close-process strain.
At a glance
The proportion of monthly period closes finished on or before the internal deadline across the last 12 months. It turns the live close picture into a reliability score. One late month is noise; a rate drifting below 90% is a pattern, and patterns in close performance are early signals of under-resourcing, fragile manual processes, or an entity that needs help.
| What it counts | Closes completed on or before the internal deadline, divided by total closes due, over the trailing 12 months. A close “counts” for the entity / month it relates to; a month closed after its deadline counts against the rate. In Finance & Operations this draws on when each Ledger period moved to closed against the close schedule; in Business Central it infers close timing from when the period’s posting range was locked relative to the deadline. |
| Scope | Across selected legal entities by default, so it is a group reliability score. Filter to one entity to see whether a single entity is dragging the group rate down. |
| Unit | Percentage (a gauge) over a rolling 12-month window. |
| Currency | Not applicable; this is a process-reliability metric, not a value metric. |
| Multi-Company | Aggregated across entities. A group rate of 90% can hide one entity at 60% offset by others at 100%, so always check the per-entity split. |
| Time window | 12mo (trailing 12 months) |
| Alert trigger | <90% |
| Roles | owner, finance |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Microsoft Dynamics 365 data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A US-headquartered group on Finance & Operations with three legal entities, snapshot 12 Jun 26 covering the trailing 12 months (Jun 25 to May 26). The internal deadline is the 6th working day of the following month.| Legal entity | Closes due | On time | Late | On-time rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US HoldCo | 12 | 12 | 0 | 100% |
| US Retail Inc | 12 | 11 | 1 | 92% |
| EU DTC BV | 12 | 7 | 5 | 58% |
| Group | 36 | 30 | 6 | 83% |
- The group looks worse than two of three entities. US HoldCo and US Retail Inc are both fine. The group rate is dragged under 90% almost entirely by EU DTC BV at 58%.
- EU DTC BV is the whole story. Five late closes in twelve months is a structural problem at that entity, not bad luck. The fix is there, not a group-wide process change.
- One late month at a good entity is noise. US Retail Inc’s single miss (92%) does not warrant intervention. The 12-month window exists precisely so one bad month does not over-react.
- This pairs with the live status card. Ledger Period Close Status tells you who is late right now; this card tells you who is chronically late. EU DTC BV showing up on both is the signal to investigate resourcing or process at that entity.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Period Close On-Time Rate is the trend behind close reliability. Pair it with these to connect the pattern to its causes.| Card | Why pair |
|---|---|
| Ledger Period Close Status | The live counterpart. This card is the 12-month trend; that one is today’s state. An entity on both is chronically and currently late. |
| Ledger Period Close Past Deadline | The current breaches feeding next month’s data point in this trend. |
| Accrual Reversals (last close) | Heavy accrual processing slows close. Noisy reversals at a low-on-time entity point at where the time goes. |
| Open (Not Posted) Journal Entries | A persistently large unposted queue is a leading cause of late close. |
| Manual Journals as % of Total | A high manual workload correlates strongly with slower, less reliable close. |
Reconciling against Microsoft Dynamics 365
Where to look in Business Central / Finance & Operations:Finance & Operations: General ledger > Period close > Financial period close workspace (task completion dates against the close schedule) Finance & Operations: General ledger > Period close > Ledger periods (when each period moved to closed) Finance & Operations: General ledger > Ledger setup > Ledger calendars (period structure underpinning the schedule) Business Central: Finance > Accounting Periods (and the historical changes to the Allow Posting range that mark each close)To reconcile: for each of the last 12 months, compare when the period actually closed against its internal deadline, then average across months and entities. The card should match that manual tally subject to how close timing is captured. Why our number may legitimately differ:
| Reason | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Deadline definition | Either | The rate uses your configured internal deadline. A native review against the statutory filing date will produce a different (usually higher) on-time rate. |
| Close-timing source | Either | F&O records explicit close actions; BC infers close from when the posting range was locked. If a BC team locks the range late even though work finished on time, the inferred timing differs from reality. |
| Reopened periods | Either | A period closed on time then reopened for an audit adjustment may be counted differently depending on whether the reopen is treated as a new close event. |
| Entity weighting | Either | The group rate weights each entity-month equally. A native view that weights by revenue or transaction volume reads differently. |
| New entities | Card lower | An entity onboarded mid-year has fewer closes in the window, so its early misses carry more weight in its own rate. |