BlackLine's cloud-based financial operations management platform unifyies data and processes, automating repetitive tasks and enhancing accountability. BlackLine solutions for financial close, accounts receivable, and intercompany accounting support large enterprises and midsize companies.
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Cube Risk
Score 0.0 out of 10
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N/A
$50,000
per year
FloQast
Score 8.8 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
FloQast offers their financial close software to streamline accounting month end close, simply providing automation around reconciliation and eliminating human error, and visibility via a close status dashboard, as well as providing a complete audit trail.
BlackLine has a stronger foundation in terms of functionality. However Floqast and Highradius have a much better User Interface and integration with MS Teams.
as we are still relatively new to BlackLine we are still in process of getting things set up and settled within the team. it does seem more user friendly.
I haven't had an opportunity yet to explore any other wonderful products offered by BlackLine yet, honestly it was the first time in the Vantage event when we found out that BlackLine offers so much more than just reconciliations, it was an eye opener and knowing that there …
BlackLine is easier and cleaner in the sense of being on a platform that standardizes your system. Floqast just comes in and adds a tag to your already existing daily files and processes, which makes it just a bandaid to a larger more underlying problem. BlackLine for our use, …
Frontier is the product that we had before going to BlackLine. There are some parts of BlackLine that don't stack up well but overall BlackLine is slowing becoming the product of the future now that is is address some of the issues that have been a problem us - again have a …
BlackLine's functionality is richer and broader. However, it is not as user-friendly as FloQast. I wish BlackLine would take on re-platforming the User Interface and Experience as a major initiative. This will enable BlackLine to explore new market segments such has High Tech …
I have used Blackline at a previous job. It was also a useful tool, but I find FloQast more modern and user-friendly. FloQast has an updated interface and was a lot smoother to navigate that Blackline. While FloQast could improve in certain areas, it is definitely a step up …
FloQast offers more capabilities and a better user interface. Everything is centralized in one location and can be seen from an overall view. Being able to navigate throughout each period and finding whatever you need to find is convenient on FloQast as well. This is essential …
Three of the main reasons we selected FloQast were the flexibility in the use of the software, the company's ongoing innovation, and the fact that our information stays on our SharePoint site, rather than on the audit software's server.
I like FloQast a lot better, it has input with NetSuite that I think is easy to understand. We use Workiva for quarterly financial reporting, and might be useful to see what FloQast has to offer when it comes to that to prevent us from having to use another software
It is cost effective and also the team from FloQast is very much supportive and are super active when we raise any ticket they resolve the issue as soon as possible. It is also user friendly like the other tools are complicate to set up and to understand but FloQast is easy to …
I used Blackline at my previous job. Now I use FloQast at my current job. FloQast is, in my opinion, much easier to use than Blackline and the looks and feels of the website are more user friendly and visually pleasing. Blackline seemed like a separate system and was not …
I used BlackLine a while ago with a different company and only for 3 months or so. From what I recall, it was fairly similar in functionality and service offering to what FQ offers. That was a good while ago, but I do like the layout and functionality in FQ. It didn't take long …
We started with BlackLine and after a year and limited adoption across the accounting team, changed to FloQast. We had numerous reasons, including difficulty in working with the BlackLine standard reconciliation, time needed to complete the set up for automatic reconciliation …
Having FloQast automatically pulls updates from excel files saved in our shared folders is key instead of having to upload new files as we've done in the past with other comparable products
At the time we picked FloQast, they were the most cost effective and easiest tool to use. Fast forward a little bit, and Numeric has come to market. I really lie Numeric to be honest and feel that their pricing is better and for that lower pricing, they include more …
The User Interface and implementation were the key drivers for choosing FQ compared to BL. Our team was up in a matter of days or so it felt! Even if you didn't get properly trained in FQ, you could easily figure it out on your own, which was nice, especially for a large team.
We found that FloQast fit well into our existing close process and made it much more efficient. Other rooms, such as Blackline, required a longer and more costly implementation. It also required the use of their reconciliation formats. We did not see the value in that …
I used Blackline many years ago but found it to be a waste of time. I didn't like being required to use the Blackline format for reconciliations. The one size fits all mentality never quite works out when it comes to accounting - every business does things a little differently. …
Netgain has a product called NetClose which we've considered but ultimately went with FloQast because of simplicity and ease of use. The other product was more technical and hands on.
FloQast has a strong brand, offers excellent customer service, has a strong core product, and continues to improve and provide additional value to its customers.
BlackLine is well-suited for us when it comes to the bank reconciliations, as our systems feed right into BlackLine, and the various match sets reconcile the data effortlessly. BlackLine would work to its fullest extent if all departments utilized it, so you can take advantage of all the various products that are available.
It's really good in ensuring all of our accounting/finance people are on the same page and knowing what work is outstanding, at what step in the process reconcs or checklists or at, if we're tracking on time, who may need some additional support, etc. It really does a great job of letting us know when accounts are out of balance and needs to be looked at again. Ensures we will be fully ready for audit and pass with flying colors.
The Reporting Module does not provide any FRA reports. Variance reporting is Limited.
FRA, To trace from GL balances imported to the Variance module can be difficult, as you need to map the GL balances to the level in the Var Module. This is a manual offline process. Would be good to have reporting that provides the link.
Matching Module - Intransit, when scheduling, you cannot pull all the unmatched transactions; only the current period.
Match Sets: if you have a chance to a live match set (e.g., filter at DS), you can't update the Match Set; you have to rebuild. It would be good to be able to amend and not rebuild.
It would be great to see drill down capabilities between account reconciliations/flux analyses that links to our transactional data in our ERP.
I would like to see a litte more customization available in the analytics tab to add custom filter drop downs.
I believe this is close to being released, but I'd like to see anticipated time commitments on the task level to be able to easily review capacity type reporting/analytics.
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
It has proven to enhance our procedures with closing. It is an effective tool that I would recommend to create a more efficient closing procedure and get the team more aligned. It increases the accountability among the staff and helps to keep us on task and on time. It is easy to sign into and has reminder emails for tasks that are coming up or late.
There are some processes that we currently use that cannot be done in BlackLine. Our users don't want to change their processes or learn new processes even though it would make their jobs easier. We have very few users who have adopted BlackLine fully, and management has not made it a requirement to use the application.
FloQast is incredibly intuitive and easy to use. The only reason I don't give it a 10 is that the Flux Analysis feature is not great in terms of getting the information into the system. Once it's in, fantastic! But some work is needed
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 have only noticed a slight slow down in accessing FloQast on a couple of occasions (near the beginning of a month when many people were likely trying to get online to close their books). The issue has always resolved itself with three to five minutes, so it's never been a hinderance.
FloQast's performance is great. The pages always load quickly, and reports are completed fast! I've never noticed any slowdown in our ERP from the interface with FloQast.
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!
They are rapid in their response. If they can't immediately offer a solution, they continue to keep in contact with you to let you know where they are in resolving your issues. The staff is friendly & speaks to you in layman's terms, not so high-tech that you can't understand
The FloQast team members are just so personable. FloQast has clearly done a great job hiring people who are not just good at what they do, but are also fun to work with! They have placed people in the right roles and the customer benefits from this. I have enjoyed every opportunity I've had to work with a FloQast team member on training.
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.
The online training is good. But like all online, pre-recorded training, it is never quite as good as in-person or live training where one can ask questions or get clarification. That said, FloQast has an extensive training library and most of the time, if one finds they need help on a topic, it can be answered by going to the online training and watching appropriate recording.
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
Implementation occured before I started with the company (but despite the instruction to skip the question if I did not participate, the site required I put in a rating in order to move on to the next page)
BlackLine is easier and cleaner in the sense of being on a platform that standardizes your system. FloQast just comes in and adds a tag to your already existing daily files and processes, which makes it just a bandaid to a larger more underlying problem. BlackLine for our use, is much better and cost wise was very similar.
I used BlackLine at my previous job. Now I use FloQast at my current job. FloQast is, in my opinion, much easier to use than BlackLine and the looks and feels of the website are more user friendly and visually pleasing. BlackLine seemed like a separate system and was not really connected to Intacct (they used Intacct as well at my previous job). Everything just seemed clumsy with that system. FQ is smoother.
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.
We started using it with one client/customer and now use it with fourteen entities and plan to add two more in the next couple of months. It has made it possible to grow our business without hiring additional personnel. We can do more work with the same number of people
Ability to centralize certain functions across the team into one role, as opposed to having multiple team members perform the same function for their entities.
While not a negative impact, it's important to note that getting the best use of BlackLine is a time commitment. The time, resources, and energy you put into it will determine how successful you are at utilizing BlackLine to transform how your team gets the job done. This optimization journey is a continuous evolution and will not be an overnight transformation.
