Key Takeaways

  • OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar said in a blog post Monday that the company is working to transform its monthly financial close from a periodic, urgent task into a continuous process.
  • Friar joined OpenAI two years ago. She said achieving the vision of a "day-zero close" is one of two "bold goals" she set for the finance department, with the other being an automated, continuously updated forecasting mechanism.
  • "We are still working toward both of these goals," Friar said. "This work has already changed how our team operates. It pushes us beyond static spreadsheets, manual retrieval of supporting documents, and presentations, toward real-time tools built on full business context and data."

Deeper Dive

According to an article published in July 2025 by fintech company Yooz, a day-zero close (also known as a continuous close or touchless close) means that transactions are completed and recorded as they occur, so that little to no additional processing is needed at the end of the accounting period.

"Rapid advances in technology and automation have made the concept of a day-zero close a reality," Yooz said. The company stated that this approach allows businesses to report financial results faster and frees employees from time-consuming, tedious processes.

For OpenAI, advancing the day-zero close is part of a broader plan by Friar to build an "AI-native finance department," as outlined in her blog post. At the same time, she is also expanding the finance team as the business grows rapidly.

In March of this year, OpenAI completed a funding round with committed capital of $122 billion and a valuation of $852 billion. The ChatGPT developer has also begun preparing for a potential public listing, announcing in June that it had confidentially submitted a draft S-1 registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Friar said that when she joined OpenAI two years ago, "there was only a small finance team supporting a company growing at an extraordinary pace."

"We needed to build the finance function from the ground up and make AI a foundational way we work, make decisions, and support the business," she said.

At that time, tasks such as closing the books and updating forecasts still relied on manual, repetitive work. "We had the world's most advanced AI tools, yet we were still learning how to redesign financial processes around them," Friar wrote.

She said the push for a day-zero close aims to provide leaders with "a real-time, reconciled, and traceable view of the company's financial position." As part of this vision, the company is working to connect approved spending plans, general ledger actuals, purchase orders, accruals, and transaction details into a "continuously reconciled view," according to the blog post.

Friar said the broader goal is to build a finance team that "understands what is happening in real time, shows leaders what is likely to happen next, and helps the company make better decisions earlier."

"Achieving this requires more than just adopting new technology," she said. "It requires redesigning workflows around key decisions, giving employees room to experiment, embedding clear accountability into every workflow, and measuring reliable work done by AI to provide a clear return on investment."