The Billtrust suite of AR solutions helps make sense of customers' ever-expanding invoicing preferences, their growing use of digital payments, and AR teams' valuable time. Accelerating the order-to-cash cycle benefits both sides of the B2B transaction.
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BlackLine
Score 8.4 out of 10
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BlackLine automates the the processes required to finalize periodic closing of the books. Beyond close/reconciliation management the product includes capabilities to enhance the management and control of financial processes throughout the accounting cycle. In October 2020, BlackLine acquired Rimilia, an AR automation solution. Rimilia's capabilities are now part of the BlackLine platform.
For a simple invoice-based organization, especially with multiple stores, Billtrust is an appropriate fit. While lacking in design and intuitive functionality, Billtrust got the job done as far as receiving payments from customers. However, if you are in a subscription-based business or one that invoices on a frequent repetitive manner, Billtrust may not be the best solution.
BlackLine has worked well for our companies, as we have a very old ERP system that is limited to what can be done within the system. Everything was done manually through Excel and binders to keep everything together, and each location had their own way of closing, so there was no consistency. It took longer to complete our close, and it created opportunities for a lack of separation of duties within the process. BlackLine has everything in one place, easy viewing of past months, strict separation of duties implemented (based on your specifications,) easy viewing for an auditor to get everything they need without a lot of hands on from the team, and works the same across all of our global locations, but in their local language and currency. BlackLine may not be a huge assist to those that have ERP systems that can handle doing the Recs, the JE's, the approvals, etc., all within its own system, as long as every location is on the same system. If they are all on different accounting systems, BlackLine can assist in providing consistency across all accounting locations, so processes can be the same no matter where they are located.
Billtrust's customer service always replies within 24 hours, leaving the case open until it is verified to be resolved.
The customer portal our credit managers access is exceptionally well designed, allowing us to see when an invoice was delivered, and even when the end-user opened it. There are built-in reports to answer almost any question.
Saving time! Our manual process became automated the minute we "turned on" Blackline!
Focus! By saving time using Blackline, our employees are able to focus on other job responsibilities and profit-generation
Support! Blackline's support throughout our implementation and post-implementation has been exceptional. We always receive timely responses and get answers fast, when needed
User Friendly! Their system is very easy to navigate. Even individuals in our organization that don't like or embrace change said the transition to Blackline was smooth and painless
Early functionality for Oracle users - a lot of the new products are only for use by SAP users.
Access to API data to improve the reporting of data out of BlackLine.
Ability to create reports in BlackLine across data sources.
Ability to email reports out of BlackLine (either ad-hoc or scheduled reports) as opposed to the current process of having the user access BlackLine to retrieve the report.
We have a longstanding good record of invoice delivery and a high number of customers who are accustomed to the look and feel for logging to make payments
Because this is a great tool with many possibilities and cool perks. Plus, as an admin - because I am both user and admin - I can say that this is easy to handle, you don't even have to be able to write a single piece of code to do so
BlackLine could use a little work in getting around the system. The interface is not without its issues including lots of scrolling up and down and a lack of using the entire screen. Importing of the initial setup data could be better defined and reimporting data to add additional fields could pose an issue of overwriting data in a negative way.
We never experienced an outage with BlackLine. The only time the system was unavailable was during planned outages for updates and upgrades usually Friday evening after 6pm pst until Saturday morning at 6am pst.
We deal with our customer's AR personnel to help resolve issues with our open invoices. They can help us but seem to be lacking in the overall understanding of the Billtrust software and why things may work the way they do. We have some accounts that are active that we have been unable to add to our corporate account, and as a result, these bills must be paid via check, and we are not currently receiving statements. It would be great if they had more robust customer service or maybe different criteria for creating accounts.
In my experience, the support team is beyond exceptional. They are incredibly knowledgeable and dedicated to the customer. You can expect prompt, professional and succinct responses. I have been working with the support team for BlackLine for more than ten years where I have been a customer four times. If anyone does Support right, it is definitely BlackLine. Not only can you trust your financials, but you can trust the team to support you through all your objectives!
Trainings are available for all topics on the BlackLine U portal. These were incredibly helpful when first starting with BlackLine to get the hang of it. Trainings are useful for any module. I have personally used this to teach myself how to use the tasks and variance modules, which are now fully utilized by my organization. The support team is also very helpful in training our team on anything additional we have needed.
You will have to meet up with your final users, approver, internal auditor and accounting policy holder. Everyone has to agree. When you have a well written process, workflow, policy, approval requirement, and control, your implementation process will be much easier
For a less tech-educated workforce, Billtrust did the job and required minimal developer resources on our end. Also, while Billtrust lacked in several arenas relative to Stripe, it was good for us since we were not a subscription-based business. For the price, Billtrust was a good solution for our invoice-to-pay business.
I have not used any products similar to Blackline. However, Excel does offer many similar functionalities to Blackline in terms of reconciling accounts. Blackline offers many benefits over simply using Excel. The reconciliations are organized and easy to find, and they roll over each month on their own. They include the ability to auto-certify if they meet the criteria that your team selects. They also include an audit trail of documentation and approval for each step.
After implementing BlackLine our company acquired another large company with multiple operations. We were able to use the COVID shutdown to bring them on board with BlackLine with little effort in the setup and training of the users.
10 day reduction in our DSO resulting in increased cash flow
Savings in printing, ink, folding, stuffing, and postage over in-house production, and additional savings with every customer that changes from paper to electronic delivery methods
Increased payment application by batching payment types by day into one file
Enhanced knowledge base for staff through webinars, Twitterviews, conferences, classes, and contact with customer support allow our staff to utilize our tools fully
More insight into balance sheet account balances. Our team is more timely with getting errors fixed and monitoring important accounts.
The task management tool helps us ensure that we are completing all accruals and reviews each month. This has led to fewer errors and missing accruals.
Our use of BlackLine has greatly increased our efficiency by reducing manual work.
