Benchmarks are the most misused instrument in finance management. Not because the numbers are wrong, but because of what happens to them in a slide: the median becomes a target, the spread disappears, the peer set goes unstated, and a distribution that described a population becomes an objective for a specific organisation it may not describe at all.
This piece does two things. It publishes the distributions we maintain, with their peer set and method attached. And it sets out the reading discipline that turns them into decisions.
The distributions
Peer set: 58 organisations — mid-market B2B software companies of comparable revenue and stage. Classified independent, high confidence, as of 1 January 2026.
| Benchmark | Median | Top quartile | Interquartile range | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Days to close the books | 6 | 4 | 5–8 | Lower is better |
| Days sales outstanding | 47 | 38 | 40–55 | Lower is better |
| Finance cost, % of revenue | 1.1% | 0.8% | 0.9–1.4% | Lower is better |
| Revenue per finance FTE | $9.8M | $12.5M | $8–12.5M | Higher is better |
| Close automation — routine steps automated | 55% | 75% | 40–70% | Higher is better |
| Planning maturity — FP&A operating model | Driver-based | Continuous | Consolidated → Driver-based | Higher is better |
The interquartile range is published deliberately. Most benchmark presentations omit it, and the omission is where the misuse begins.
Rule 1 — The median is not a target
The median describes what is normal in a population. Normal is not an objective; it is a description of the middle of a distribution that includes organisations with worse constraints than yours, worse systems than yours, and no active improvement programme.
Three consequences:
- Aiming at the median aims at being unremarkable, and by the time a programme lands —
typically 12 to 24 months — the median has moved.
- The top quartile is the honest target, because it describes what is achievable by
organisations broadly like you rather than what is typical.
- Being at the median is not a finding. It generates no decision. The useful questions
are how far the top quartile is and what separates it — and the median answers neither.
The instinct to target the median comes from a reasonable place: it feels achievable and defensible. But a target that would leave the organisation exactly where the middle of the market already is does not justify a transformation budget, and a board will notice.
Rule 2 — The spread is the finding
A narrow interquartile range means the metric is well understood and largely under management control: most organisations cluster, and distance from the cluster is a performance signal.
A wide range means something quite different, and it is the more common case in finance. It means context dominates outcome. Days to close spans 5–8 at the interquartile — a 60% difference between the first and third quartile — which tells you that entity count, ERP quality, audit intensity and whether statutory and management close are separated matter more than effort or competence.
The practical implication is a reordering. Where the spread is wide, the first question is not "how do we get to 4 days?" but "which structural characteristics put an organisation at 5 rather than 8, and which of those do we have?" A programme that skips that question sets a target it may be structurally unable to reach, and burns credibility reaching for it.
Rule 3 — Interrogate the peer set before the number
A comparison against the wrong population is worse than no comparison, because it produces false confidence in a specific direction.
Ours is stated: 58 mid-market B2B software companies. That is a genuine constraint, and it means these distributions transfer well to organisations with similar transaction profiles and poorly to, for example, a multi-entity manufacturer with heavy intercompany volume or a regulated financial institution with statutory reporting obligations that dominate the close.
Three questions to ask of any benchmark before using it:
- Who is in the set, and how many? A benchmark without a stated population is a
marketing number.
- When was it taken? Finance benchmarks move slowly, but automation coverage does not.
- Who assembled it, and what do they sell? A distribution published by a vendor whose
product improves that metric is not independent evidence, whatever its methodology says.
That third question applies to us as much as to anyone, which is why we publish the peer set, the method and the as-of date alongside every figure, and take no placement fees on any product that would move them.
Rule 4 — Convert the gap into a decision, not a target
A gap is not a plan. The conversion has four steps, and most benchmark exercises stop after the first.
- Size the gap in the unit that matters. Not "we are two days above median" but "two
days of close effort across the team, at this cost, delaying reporting by this much."
- Identify which structural characteristics explain part of it. Entity count and ERP
quality are not excuses; they are scope. The portion of the gap that is structural requires a different intervention from the portion that is process.
- Locate the addressable portion on the maturity spine. A gap explained by an L1
process is closed by standardization, not by tooling — a distinction the benchmark itself cannot make.
- Set the target at the top quartile, adjusted for the structural portion, and name
the stage that closes it.
Only after step 4 does a benchmark comparison become a management instrument.
Why we publish the qualitative benchmark too
Quantitative distributions answer how much. They cannot answer why, and a finance function that is 8 days on close needs to know which of several quite different conditions produced that number.
That is what the maturity spine is for: a capability at L1 (Manual) and one at L3 (Automated) can both produce a mediocre close-day number, for entirely different reasons and with entirely different remedies. Reading the quantitative benchmark against the maturity position is what turns a comparison into a diagnosis.
- Target the top quartile, never the median. The median describes what is typical,
including organisations with worse constraints and no improvement programme. It will also have moved by the time you arrive.
- A wide spread is a finding, not noise. Where the interquartile range is wide, context
dominates — so establish which structural characteristics apply to you before setting a number.
- Always read a benchmark against the peer set and the maturity position. The number
tells you how far; only the maturity position tells you what closes it.
Where this leaves you. Take the one benchmark where you are furthest from the top quartile, and split the gap into its structural and addressable portions before setting any target. The split is usually the whole insight.