BlackLine vs. FloQast vs. Paychex

BlackLine is great for centralization and standardization of Recs, great for reporting and ease of controls documentation. It is not a full fledged automated GRC platform but what it does do with Recs and GL recs is exemplary. The use of the automated Data Loads for both GL and Subledgers is fantastic.

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I used another vendor for close management before, and comparing the two, FloQast is easier to use and the site navigation is much easier. The looks and feels of the site are more engaging and pleasant. As mentioned before in the previous question, their Journal Entry posting functionality is not suited for a company with multiple entities since it only allows you to book an entry when debits and credits are hitting the same entity

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It is best suited for payrolls from 1 to 150 employees, because their constant attention and flex system are easy to use. Any problem is taking care by your Paychex Agent, and they always listen to you. Better yet, when you become a client with more than 5 years, you get special discount on your renewal. Honestly, I can't not think on nothing that will be less appropriate.

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• Segregation of duties - allows for a formal way to ensure that there is a separate preparer/approver for a given task or reconciliation.
• Provides visibility - having account reconciliation data in one place has automated processes that were once very manual, and involved multiple team members aggregating data.
• Streamlines communication and status of close - having all tasks in one place, in the same format gives us the visibility needed to manage our close process, and know the status of items that are still pending and open for action. This was previously a game of telephone between staff, managers, and leaders, and now has been automated via tasks.
• Automation/Optimization - BlackLine provides a lot of opportunity to automate certain reconciliations based on thresholds, rules, and templates. This allows the team to use that time for researching actual issues, and keeping our balance sheet reconciliations clean.

• Provides a clear status of the month end close.
• Allows us to analyze tasks by team member and reassign as needed.
• It syncs with our ERP Netsuite to ensure balance sheet reconciliations can be tied out directly.
• It also connects with Slack to notify users of key deadlines and changes in review status for team tasks.

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• It provides a well account of Retirement Plan Account Information.
• Alerts are sent to email when there is new information to access.
• Employee access both online and thru app.
• Paperless options.
• Easy and quick access to paystubs and tax forms.
• Easy employee retirement management.

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• 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.

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• A setting to allow for attachments to automatically be opened within the app (Adobe, Excel, etc.) rather than as a separate tab in the browser
• Some of our tasks are quarterly or annual so assigning a very specific date would be helpful
• Eliminate the need of "closing" review notes. Once we change the status to Resolved, that should be sufficient. Make Resolved and Closed one and the same

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• I understand logging you out is a security function, but I'd prefer it not to log you out so soon.
• The training we received for the team's meeting was subpar, in my opinion. Probably better geared for people with little to no computer experience. Very slow pace; we could have easily received all of this from some tutorials in a few minutes.

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BlackLine has made our finance team more effective and accurate. Our current ERP system is unable to do any sort of financial activities currently being done with our BlackLine licenses. Prior to BlackLine everything was done manually through Excel and stored in binders. There was no option for a paperless process. We are now 100% paperless in our close process, freeing up time, space and saving money on office supplies.

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.

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Overall I like the features that Paychex Flex offers. I am sure that there are other features that I am unaware of, so I am excited to see if there is more that Flex is capable of to make my job easier. The basic features are really user friendly and easy to access. If there ever is an issue customer service is great

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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.

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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

Once you are set up in the system, it is very user-friendly and usability is on par with my expectations. Onboarding new employees is simple, employee access is simple and easy for them to use. Tax documentation, reporting, and entering payroll is easy and user-friendly. Running reports and finding information necessary to keep the flow moving foward is easy to do

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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.

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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.

We have not experienced any difficulties with unplanned outages. Notifications are always made for outages, and they do not effect normal business operations.

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On month ends we get complaints about delay in journal postage

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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.

Unless there is lag time within the internet, the Paychex Flex website loads exceptional fast, pages load quickly and reports that I need to print or download load quickly. If I need to create a specialized report, once I complete it I receive an e-mail telling me my report is ready to be downloaded. Changing between web pages is fast as well.

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Our issues have been few and far between, and have usually been very niche, requiring an extensive review process on both our end and BlackLine's. BlackLine worked with us every step of the way to get them resolved, but because of their nature, they can take longer than a day/week to resolve.

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

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The dedicated support we are given is good and very responsive. If there is a change to the dedicated support, we are notified quickly and have temporary support in place while we wait for our new rep. The phone support is knowledgeable and quick to help if there is an immediate need. However, the chat support can be the slowest option and doesn't always launch so I rarely use it.

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It’s impactful to be F2F

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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.

We did online training only

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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.

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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.

It was easy to understand and follow along. I do like the informational videos that we can utilize before we opt to call in for customer service support. It has made a difference since sometimes that resolves the issue I may have had and saved myself a phone call to Paychex support.

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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)

Implementation was very smooth. The most cumbersome task was entering the current employees into the system during initial set up, but Paychex staff handled most of that and verified against prior system reports as well as internal reports provided to ensure 100% accuracy.

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I have not used any of the other products, but we did evaluate them during our discovery phase. BlackLine was the "Cadillac" of the product offerings. You could get a similar product, and maybe even at a lower cost, but we wanted the best of the best, and that's what BlackLine is. We wanted a product that we could grow into, rather than a product we would outgrow over time as our organization grows. We have only touched the surface with BlackLine so far, and we've already reaped the benefits.

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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 functions. However, we continued with FloQast for ease of continuity and my team is time strapped. What that said, FloQast is great - nothing wrong with it other than it could be cheaper.

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In addition to the ones listed above, we also used BenePay, a local payroll company. We found Paychex Flex priced in the middle, with ADP the most expensive and too complicated, with many features that were unnecessary for us. We found that Paychex Flex's features and reporting to be sized right for our size (around 30 employees). Paychex Flex also offered a very reasonable service to apply for the ERTC

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Depends on the module

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I had no control over the contract

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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.

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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

I generally do payroll at the office, however I have had to go remote due to internet issues and also had to take payroll on vacation with me. Very easy to log in wherever you are and manage your TAA and payroll

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• Implementing bank reconciliation matching has taken more time than expected, creating an additional workload for team members.
• Increased visibility into the team's progress on close tasks and reconciliations, allowing for greater accountability.
• This allows our team to have a one-stop shop for all things close-related, saving us time with fewer status calls, trackers to update, etc.

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• Floqast has reduced our closing schedule by roughly 15-20% of the time it took us beforehand.
• The product has been very beneficial for us during audit time when we can easily demonstrate our control workflows on reconciliation and task approvals.
• I can update our CFO at any point in time how we are trending towards close and can coordinate with finance as to the moment journal entries have been completed

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• With Paychex Flex we have been able to improve our compliance with required documentation for new/rehires
• Moving everyone to direct deposit and mobile clock in/out eliminated lines at punching stations and paycheck pickup stations
• Lost checks is a thing of the past

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