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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UiPath Automation Platform
Score 8.5 out of 10
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UiPath's hyperautomation platform combines a Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solution with capabilities to enable organizations to scale digital business operations at speed, automating millions of repetitive, mind-numbing tasks for businesses and government organizations all over the world.
$420
per month
Pricing
BlackLine
UiPath Automation Platform
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Automation Developer
$420
per month
Unattended Automation
$1380
per month
Automation Team
$1930
per month
Enterprise Medium Business
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BlackLine
UiPath Automation Platform
Free Trial
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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A 60-day trial is available. Buyers can also configure any of these plans to fit the business needs.
When we get BlackLine 6 years ago and then again after 3 years during the agreement renewal, we evaluated Oracle and Trintech and decided for BlackLine due to SAAS, easy of use, and rich features.
Softomotive is very easy to use and learn, actually one are of the company had already developed a number of automation using them. The problem is lack of scalability, meaning thinking about future grow, it's not clear how they can handle / manage hundreds of robots. Blue Prism …
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.
UiPath Automation Platform is well-suited for automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks such as invoice processing, data entry, and report generation. By using UiPath Automation Platform, employees can focus on more strategic tasks, which leads to increased efficiency. Additionally, UiPath Automation Platform is highly effective at automating rule-based processes, such as financial processes like bank statement reconciliation, account payable, and account receivable processes that follow a set of predetermined rules.
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
Any type of application can be automated (Desktop Application, Web Application and also applications reachable only via remote technologies such as Citrix, Remote Desktop and so on).
The writing of a process code takes place entirely through the use of objects. In the event that there were no objects capable of solving a particular problem, it is possible to use some languages of the .net platform such as: VB.net, C#.
It is easy to scale the solution by adding more robots to run a process in case the solution requires more performance in the future.
It can also be used by functional analysts to design the flow to be automated.
An academy is available online where basic and advanced courses can be taken. It is also possible to take a completely free basic certification.
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.
As I mentioned, Excel automation is not very effective, there are a number of packages to add, but there is nothing as smooth as a good macro.
Working with selectors is certainly challenging and UiPath does a good job with that, but there is room for improvement since the interface could be smarter in selecting the right attributes and warn the user if something is not properly setup.
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
This platform has so much potential and have been garnering a lot of attention by proving benefits in terms of saving operational and manpower costs. I am sure with minute efforts we were able to achieve our ROI and the same is the case with many of our customers whom we have been working around Digital Automation initiatives.
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.
It's an easy to maintain and easy to use RPA Tool. It has a relatively low learning curve when compared to other RPA tools in the market. That is mostly due to it's Academy where the bulk of engineers gather their information from. And their Community Forum, is outstanding with support from around the world and almost, if not all, every topic imaginable in the RPA field.
The Community Edition is updated on a regular basis, and last year they even managed to release a build every month!
The Orchestrator, Platform, Go!, Academy is cloud based which makes access to information and data very easy.
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!
UiPath RPA has an exceptional studio interface. It has been a year and so since I am using UiPath RPA. Whether it is some my personal task to scrape information & links from the Journal or find a specific character string from multiple PDF collection using OCR, UiPath RPA has made its roots to our technological ecosystem
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.
Video material supported by text. The training has evolved a lot in the past 3 years to become more attractive. Specific training tracks exist for the different roles in RPA development, where everyone is expected to learn basic development.
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.
As compared to other products, we require programming knowledge and concepts to work but UiPath is for everyone. It provides us extensive event logging at various stages and effective exception handling for applications and business. It increases our agility and enhances the overall productivity further by using the source control SVC. The solution that we implemented is also very scalable in terms of incorporating new requirements.
The open source tools require lots of IT effort in order to set up and maintain over time. UiPath is like a complete package and customer service is also active in terms of solving issues arising while automating procession on a day to day basis.
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.
