BlackLine

We executed Direct Sourcing RFP and BlackLine was the chosen vendor. We purchased Balance sheet Reconciliation, SAP Connector, Matching module and Manual Journal Voucher. Currently we have implementation project with expected go live May'2024

We currently use it for our tasks, account recons, journals, and hope to have variances turned on here in the next few months. These modules have helped us speed up the journal entry and approval process. It has also streamed lined our reoncs to a cnetral data base from being saved per user on multiple locations.

BlackLine has been a lifesaver for my finance team. There was some job transitioning after we had completed our setup, as two employees moved out of state. With a completely manual close process, we were at a 7+ day close. With two people gone, and no replacement for them provided, we were able to continue our close process with no hiccups, and even lowering the close to 4.5 days with the assistance of our BlackLine products. We use tasks to keep up with the differing tasks (monthly, quarterly, yearly, etc.). We use journal entries and are loving the separation of duties and audit trail it provides. We use reconciliations, which has changed my world, as I have over 300 recs a month to complete. With our account setups, it is not only able to reconcile the accounts that had no account activity for me to review, but it's also able to process my recurring and amortization items for me. We recently started using the matching feature and it has changed our 2-day cash reconciliation to a couple of hours. It worked so well, we implemented it at our foreign locations as well.

We use BlackLine for Account Reconciliations and Close Task Management

BlackLine will allow us to more efficiently and effectively complete account reconciliations. We will be able to more readily analyze our many accounts and even auto-certify some accounts. This will free up personnel to complete other tasks or conduct further analysis on other areas. Overall, our quality and assurance will go up.

I implement BlackLine for my clients and they use it to automate their various Close to Report processes, from recs to journals. BlackLine is a one-of-a-kind tool in the market. It helps tackle various intercompany pain points through a methodical, well-thought-out, end-to-end solution.

We are excited at the opportunities we have to implement BlackLine's Account Rec and Task Modules as a part of initial implementation as well as pursue future opportunities like Smart Close and FR Analytics. Our team is expecting to significantly reduce manual effort so we can repurpose our team to focus on improving our deliverables as a finance function and focus on more value-added analysis work.

We use transaction matching in BlackLine to reconcile our fiduciary bank accounts. BlackLine has moved us out of the traditional Excel bank reconciliations and opened the door to automation. Our month-end close process for these accounts is more efficient than we ever imagined it could be, because of BlackLine.

We have many affiliates within the organization. While not all of them use BlackLine, I support the administration of the affiliates that use it. I am also encouraging the implementation of its use for those that do not. We primarily use Task Management and Account Reconciliations. We have rolled out the SAP Connector and are now training on Enhanced Reporting.

My team uses BlackLine for Bank Reconciliations and Balance Sheet Reconciliations. It's one place to reconcile and record your entries with a place to attach backup for audit purposes.

Blackline has helped eliminate so many of our Excel spreadsheets and manual close processes. This is one of the best software implementations I have been a part of. We continue to work with them to think about our processes in new ways and work toward more efficiency and automation. I cannot recommend this enough!!

We use Blackline to complete account reconciliations, journal entries, and task management. These products have helped with maintaining visibility and manage workflow.

We are just beginning the Automation journey and have implemented reconciliations and are working on tasks. We hope to add matching and journal entries after variance analysis. In the Black Conference is a great learning resource!

BlackLine is helping to streamline our process and ensure all tasks (such as journal entries and account reconciliations) required during a period-end are completed timely and accurately while providing insights into progress along the way. For us, the dashboard provides great visibility on the status of reconciliations and tasks assigned to both you and your team. Reports generated out of BlackLine are very useful as well.

BlackLine is used at my organization as an automation tool to reconcile cash transactions in order to generate journal entries in an efficient manner. We also utilize BlackLine's account reconciliation module which adds a layer of sophistication and control to our month end financial close procedures.

BlackLine is used internationally by all of our finance teams. This helps us track and document our review of journal entries and account reconciliations. We have now expanded our BlackLine use to manage SOX Compliance - we are able to set reminders on key controls, maintain support and provide auditor access to reduce our time spent pulling support at year end.

We primarily use BlackLine to substantiate the month-end close for our growing portfolio of managed entities. Since we utilize many different banking solutions and have multiple bank accounts per entity, the volume of transactions we have to reconcile monthly was much too tedious to do manually with our accounting ERP. As such, we had previously spent a week out of our close just reconciling bank activity; now we are able to reconcile the cash accounts daily, with BlackLine doing most of the work.

BlackLine is used for Account Reconciliations, Automated Journal Entries, and Automated Corporate Allocations. Separately, we use a BlackLine product called Smart Close to harmonize and automate our general ledger processes and tasks. BlackLine has enabled efficiency savings, quality improvement, stronger internal controls, and harmonization across regions and company locations. Efficiency gains have enabled our Shared Services environment to significantly expand without adding staff. Productivity gains within our accounting teams have enabled more focus on analysis and project management.

BlackLine has helped speed up the Reconciliation process and well keeping track of the closing process. Journal Entry also help ensure proper approval and review using their workflow certification process. We upload balances every 20 minutes using Boomi & the GP Connector. Can't wait to see the BlackLine Studio at the end of the Qtr so that we can start documenting all the processes and integrations related to all the accounting processes and integrations.

We are currently using Blackline Matching and Reconciliations and have heard all great things from all of our Finance departments about improvements and time savings. The Reconciliations product has opened visibility of all recons to our Internal and External auditors and has allowed us to work on standardization across the board as well. Matching has saved so many hours from the financial close process and we have so many use cases we add to the list to start building all the time!!

Blackline plays a key role in our culture of process improvements. It has enabled our team to reduce the use of spreadsheets and manual procedures for many of our processes. We have rolled out multiple modules that provided instant wins. I cannot imagine going back to our old processes and handling our current volume without Blackline.

BlackLine is used to monitor our close processes, account reconciliations, and task management. It is only used in our accounting department, but benefits the entire company by ensuring that the data is accurate. We used to manage the close process in Excel which yielded no accountability and did not assure us that the work was getting done accurately.

We currently use BlackLine for tasks, transaction matching, and reconciliations. BlackLine helped us improve period-end close flow and documentation. Our reconciliations are consistent across the company and many get picked up by auto-certification rules so we don't have to review and document each period. The reconciliations contain the necessary time and date stamps that our auditors look for to prove that dual review is happening in a timely manner. Probably the highest impact product we implemented was transaction matching for our bank activity. Our implementation consultant was extremely helpful and knowledgeable about setting up matching rules. These rules automatically match off transactions, so we only have to look at the exceptions. We were able to get an impressive match rate of 95%.

Currently I hold a system administration role and I also perform monthly/quarterly reconciliations in Blackline as a preparer. Business problems that Blackline addresses mainly would be having the ability access reconciliations across all regions on one platform. We have over 30 regions that perform reconciliations on a monthly basis. So to be able as a system admin keep all accounts assigned accurately and up to date is a must with the volume we see every month.

Starbucks initially implemented the BlackLine solution to go paperless for journals (using tasks) and reconciliation preparation and approval back in 2012. In 2019 we implemented the matching and journal module for our revenue accounting team, which supports over 10,000 retail stores and roughly 1.5 billion in sales monthly. After a few years of learnings and working with BlackLine and various account managers, we were able to realize time savings of over 200 hours per month for a single team. In 2021, journals and matching expanded to other teams within the Starbucks accounting organization, and another 200 hours per month of time savings were achieved. This took partnering with members of the BlackLine development team and having some tough conversations with our support teams at BlackLine. We had some challenges with new releases and had to actively work to understand the impact to our users and escalate tickets as needed. In 2022 we hit a good stride and truly had an amazing story to share. As winners of the 2022 Modern Accounting Award, Starbucks was recognized as pioneers. I value our partnership with BlackLine, UHY, and our internal technology department to achieve success to date.