Automation Anywhere vs BlackLine | TrustRadius

What users are saying about

Score 7.6 out of 10

Based on 126 reviews and ratings

Score 9.1 out of 10

Based on 132 reviews and ratings

Pros

Exception handling is pretty decent. WE don't have to worry about process being stuck as it moves to the next iteration on its own.
Automation is easier to achieve as it doesn't require high coding skills or designing a specific framework.
It can achieve PDF editing and automation, which in our case of policy documents has been valuable.

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Verified User

Consultant in Engineering

Information Technology and Services Company, 5001-10,000 employees

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Task Management is straightforward. Ownership, review, and approval are straightforward and pretty easy to configure and follow.
Account Reconciliation works similarly. Supporting documents can be attached to a given rec to ease the audit. If balances change after approved, the approval is peeled back.
Integration with our financial system works seamlessly. Configured to run every 4 hours each day, it's helpful to know even when balances change, BlackLine is up-to-date.

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Senior Netsuite Admin / Analyst / Developer

Q2ebankingFinancial Services, 501-1000 employees

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Cons

Automation Anywhere doesn't come with easy installation, We need to install Java, IDEs and Databases in an orderly fashion which we are not able to do.
Automation Anywhere has no workflow design which is not making us to understand the process.
Automation Anywhere has no fit to size object cloning.

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Senior Executive

ProdaptComputer Software, 1001-5000 employees

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There is some inconsistency in design of some of the pages (e.g. the Atlas grid is not always available).
Some navigation is frustrating (e.g. you have to use a drop-down menu to add a team rather than being able to start typing and use autocomplete to find the team, some selections such as Designate multi-currency on reconciliations take you back to the top of the page rather than just marking it, etc)
Can't delete unused data sources.

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Jennifer Nicholoff

BlackLine Application Administrator / Senior Accountant II

Expedia, Inc.Leisure, Travel & Tourism, 10,001+ employees

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Likelihood to Renew

Automation Anywhere 9.4

Based on 4 answers

It is the best automation tool.

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Verified User

Professional in Research & Development

Civil Engineering Company, 5001-10,000 employees

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BlackLine 8.8

Based on 8 answers

To continue to enjoy and leverage on the automation functionalities BlackLine offers for this process.
Make more gains on running this process efficiently and keep our Finance Teams on high-end value addition projects
With a foreseeable increase in transaction volumes when activities pick up, we need a tool we can really on to handle the volume

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Verified User

Manager in Finance and Accounting

Oil & Energy Company, 10,001+ employees

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Usability

Automation Anywhere 8.0

Based on 6 answers

On more complex use cases, Automation Anywhere requires technical background like knowledge on network protocols and database language on task creation, and even people with technical background might have some trouble in the beginning because of the product particularities on how variable manipulation works, or how to get the object cloning (a more resilient screen manipulation command) to work as intended.The scheduling of tasks on the Control Room and the autologin feature isn't intuitive as they should, so much of this works requires documentation analysis to get it done on the first time.

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Verified User

Team Lead in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 51-200 employees

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BlackLine 8.8

Based on 46 answers

BlackLine is great as a method of generating consistency across the organization and is easy to use as a preparer of the software. It also provides a method to emphasize the key pieces of information/accounts that are important to the organization and do a minimal amount on accounts that are lower risk.

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Verified User

Analyst in Finance and Accounting

Railroad Manufacture Company, 5001-10,000 employees

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Support Rating

Automation Anywhere 8.5

Based on 11 answers

Automation Anywhere is a great tool for a low cost, fairly easily scalable, and quickly learned. The company is growing by leaps and bounds and continually pushing the automation boundaries. The problem with fast expansion is that sometimes you can grow more quickly than you can appropriately support your products. While Automation Anywhere has an excellent support structure in place, every company and situation is different, and they often struggle with why problems arise in the system and how to fix them.

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Verified User

Supervisor in Finance and Accounting

Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing Company, 5001-10,000 employees

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BlackLine 8.8

Based on 112 answers

When needed they are there. In 3 years we haven't needed much with regards to support after our implementation. That being said I feel scheduled consulting and personal reach outs would go a long way to helping support customers as new features and opportunities are pushed out.

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Verified User

Manager in Finance and Accounting

Higher Education Company, 501-1000 employees

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Online Training

Automation Anywhere 8.4

Based on 2 answers

Perfect training from the online academy the software offers it for free

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Chakravarthy SSNTK

Practice Manager - RPA, Chatbots, IoT, AI & Blockchain

Miracle Software Systems, IncInformation Technology and Services, 1001-5000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Implementation Rating

Automation Anywhere 8.6

Based on 3 answers

Nothing in particular

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Chakravarthy SSNTK

Practice Manager - RPA, Chatbots, IoT, AI & Blockchain

Miracle Software Systems, IncInformation Technology and Services, 1001-5000 employees

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BlackLine 9.1

Based on 3 answers

Change is something you deal with on any new implementation. Users were already experienced with SAP Gen template. This was a new way of doing things so education of everyone was critical to success. Selling folks on this was an easier way to do their job was the key to success

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Verified User

Manager in Finance and Accounting

Pharmaceuticals Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Alternatives Considered

Other than Automaton Anywhere I have also used UiPath. What I like about Automation Anywhere is the object cloning and the way you can move the mouse and either go to a particular point or go to an element. That's very easy and intuitive in Automation Anywhere. It gets the job done in terms of getting the data out of the pages. Although I have other tools, I still have this habit of going through the clicks. If you're going through the clicks, Automation Anywhere is the best.

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Developer

OpteamixInformation Technology and Services, 201-500 employees

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For FloQast, the answer is easy as they have built their platform around integration with existing Excel workbooks which is exactly what we were trying to get away from. Cadency has a lot of similarities to BlackLine and in some areas it had a more fluid UI experience however the key differentiator was BlackLine's Data Import Template. The DIT allows users to upload directly into BlackLine large amounts of data which becomes crucial whenever updates are made to the company's existing Chart of Accounts.

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Michael Restuccia

Sr. Manager, Corporate Accounting

Covanta Energy, LLCEnvironmental Services, 1001-5000 employees

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Scalability

Automation Anywhere 9.0

Based on 2 answers

Highly reliable once you start experiencing the results. It helps you to have a clear cut results with better productivity numbers and financial savings

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Chakravarthy SSNTK

Practice Manager - RPA, Chatbots, IoT, AI & Blockchain

Miracle Software Systems, IncInformation Technology and Services, 1001-5000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Return on Investment

Our overall business has saved numerous hours of work where individuals were freed up to perform higher level thinking tasks.
Following a necessary reduction in workforce that was not driven by RPA, we were able to automate processes that kept the remaining workload from overwhelming the remaining workforce.
The use of robotics process automation has inspired many workers to come up with different approaches to problems including both automation and analytics.

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Brady Rothrock CPA, CFE, ACDA, MS-BIA

Data Scientist

SprintTelecommunications, 10,001+ employees

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Reduction of audit fees due to auditors having full visibility of global entities
Reduction of hours preparing reconciliations as the reconciliations roll forward from one month to the next
Auto-certification feature lets the accounting team focus on the more complex accounts

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Alina J. Orriols

Director - Global IT Delivery - Business Analysis

Brightstar Corp.Telecommunications, 1001-5000 employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

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Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Entry-level set up fee?

No

Automation Anywhere Editions & Modules

Edition

Cloud-Only Starter Pack	$750¹
Advanced Pack (Cloud or On-Premises)	Contact for quote

per month

Additional Pricing Details

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General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

BlackLine Editions & Modules

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Additional Pricing Details

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