Walk me through a typical group month-end close process.

It's a sequenced calendar from local close to group consolidation. Roughly: days 1–2, entities post recurring period-end items — depreciation, accruals, provisions, FX revaluation of monetary items — and reconcile sub-ledgers to the G/L. Days 2–4, intercompany reconciliation and resolution of differences against the deadline. Days 3–5, each entity prepares its reporting package with variance/flux analysis (vs prior period, budget, prior year). Days 5–8, packages are submitted into the consolidation system, where eliminations (IC, unrealized profit), currency translation, and consolidation adjustments are run and validation rules checked. Days 8–10, group review, analytical review of the consolidated numbers, sign-offs, and reporting outputs. The keys to a fast, reliable close are a hard calendar with buffers, automated validations, clean IC matching, segregation of duties/four-eyes on manual entries, and clear escalation for late submissions. Many groups run a 'fast close' compressing this further.