I am not sure I want to work without BlackLine ever again.
January 25, 2024
I am not sure I want to work without BlackLine ever again.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with BlackLine
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.
- Reconciliations can be set up in many different ways, however you need, and is very easy to use.
- Tasks have made it so we always know where we are at as individuals and as a team. If someone is behind, we can view that, and someone can jump in and assist when necessary. A very team-friendly addition.
- The journal entries function is a great process as there is a definite separation of duties and an audit trail that cannot be edited, which can be provided upon request. When it can be set up to automatically "speak" to your accounting system, the process is even better as there is limited manual touching.
- I have not found the customer community to be as helpful as we were told it would be.
- When setting up our Matching abilities, we did not have a team big enough to have one or two people 100% focused on that set up and it took longer than we anticipated because of that. It was understandably upsetting/frustrating for the BlackLine set-up team, but it should have been something they were aware of as it was explained that we had limited staff and could not give 100% to this project until it was complete. We were able to give them a small amount of time each week.
- Deleting/removing tasks or duplicate reconciliation accounts is not always easy to do, and requires someone with quite a bit of knowledge of the admin side to walk someone through it.
- BlackLine has decreased the accounting team's workload, where we are able to function faster even with fewer accounting members.
- Our team is able to complete their close tasks/functions earlier than in previous years, allowing more time for other day to day tasks and goal objectives.
- Using BlackLine has made it so when there is an accounting audit, we do not have to set aside days of no accounting work so that the team can assist the auditors pull what they need to complete their review. Now we provide them with an auditor login credential where they can peruse the system for what they need, freeing our team up to continue with their days.
BlackLine has made our accounting close to be a faster and less stressful experience from day one. Where our 6-person team would be here, days 1 to 7, early and stay late in the evening to complete all of the tasks manually, transitioning to BlackLine has allowed our 4-person team to continue their normal working hours every day, regardless of whether it was day 1 or day 10. No more early mornings or late evenings. It has also created an environment where our team is more of a team, willing to help when and where necessary, because they are not as stressed trying to complete their own tasks. There is typically time to spare for someone that might be having an off day or who is unable to work for whatever reason.
Do you think BlackLine delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with BlackLine's feature set?
Yes
Did BlackLine live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of BlackLine go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy BlackLine again?
Yes
BlackLine Feature Ratings
Using BlackLine
17 - All levels of our finance team, from three locations globally, all the way up to our VP of Finance. As we use the system, it allows for each individual team to process their own reconciliations and journal entries, selecting their own approvers, etc. If the approver(s) at any one location becomes unavailable to review and approve/reject a JE or Rec, the person submitting is able to select one of the other approvers from the same level, but at another location. This allows our close to move forward in the absence of a key person, as of now our process is the same across all three locations.
2 - We have two employees who have attended the BlackLine conference to attain more knowledge of the system and how it can be used, and how admins can assist the preparers when necessary. These team members have also watched videos on the customer community and joined in other product implementations to learn what steps can be completed at our level when implementing the same product at other locations.
- Journal entries
- Reconciliations
- Tasks
- Matching
- The use of tasks has allowed us to create our Accounts Payable payments approval process, where there is an approval flow that is auditable, where previously it was done manually by walking around and finding people to sign a sheet, or by emailing people if they were not on site.
- Within tasks, when there is a task that has a process and procedure to follow, you can link the process and procedure to the task so you don't have to hunt for it each month, or if someone else is completing that task in your place, they have the exact P&P they need to complete it as you would.
- I am hoping to link our JEs to our Recs and vice versa. If a JE is the only activity on an account, having BlackLine automatically add that JE to the reconciliation would be one less entry to be entered by hand, only reviewed for accuracy. On the other hand, if the Rec preparer creates a line that is going to require a corrective JE in the next accounting period, to be able to create that within the reconciliation would be wonderful.