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.
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Dext Prepare (with Receipt Bank)
Score 9.1 out of 10
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London based Receipt Bank offers Practice Platform, an application supporting SMBs and accounting firms with tracking receipts and expenses and logging them with minimal or no paperwork and data entry in an environment that integrates with popular accounting software (e.g. Quickbooks).
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.
It is great for accounting firms. Easy to add and administer client accounts. Easy to integrate with QuickBooks Online. Easy for clients to capture and submit receipts on the go. It is hard to use for manual data entry, and if your clients frequently have very long receipts the Dext Mobile app does not work well as it compresses the image to the point where it is completely illegible. It does not seem to be designed for business owners to use directly rather than using it through their accounting firm.
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
Receipt Bank does a stellar job of extracting information from photos of receipts and bills. I'd say 95% of the time the information pulled is correct, so very rarely do I have to correct an amount or date.
One feature I really enjoy is not only the syncing with Quickbooks Online, but the fact that it also pushes the image to Quickbooks Online as an attachment! This means that for every expense/bill processed through Receipt Bank, an image of it is available inside of the transaction inside of Quickbooks Online. This makes researching a breeze.
Receipt Bank makes it very simple for users to add documents to the platform. Each company receives a dedicated Receipt Bank email address, which they can email to and upload documents, or users can use the phone apps (which are really easy to use), or they can upload documents from their computer. Training our clients to use it really can't be any easier!
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.
Receipt Bank Practice Platform has many great features. As they develop the platform I would like to see a rigorous review of all features so as not to add too many and overwhelm my team.
Having the flexibility to pick and choose from a suite of features and implement the ones that best suit my practice. A tailor made Receipt Bank Practice Platform. this would allow my practice to grow into the features rather than be overwhelmed by too many.
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
Dext is the best way for us to manage our business expenses. Physical and PDF receipts/invoices will be around for a while, but the move to eInvoicing is very good and we look forward to Dext adding this feature
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.
Dext Prepare's usability is great, it has lots of functions and you can scan any type of document, including hard copy handwritten documents. It is not very accurate but it is handwritten!! Apart from it, you can use multiple functions like one page at a time, multiple, in bulk. You can send emails with multiple attachments and one of the greatest function is the mobile application capabilities.
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.
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!
Never used the support function. I guess that means it’s easy to use and works well because I never had an issue in 3 years. Not sure if the support team is helpful.
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
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.
Receipt Bank is superior to Wave in terms of its accuracy of reporting and allocating expenses. Even though there is a fee for Receipt Bank and Wave is free, the monthly fee for Receipt Bank is well worth the money, given the benefits
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.
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.
