November 3, 2024

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How BlackLine helped two companies streamline their finance

How BlackLine helped two companies streamline their finance

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Finance and accounting groups are constantly on the hunt for ways to streamline processes and improve performance so they can add more worth to their functions. A situation research of two companies that are employing BlackLine’s platform to drive enhancements.

In today’s aggressive and Covid-19 ecosystem, numerous classic procedures and workflows in the finance realm will need evolve to perform properly. Confronted with these difficulties, money and accounting groups are making raising use of technology. Tools and platforms this kind of as BlackLine are staying put in spot that streamline workflows and appreciably boost productivity in a remote-doing the job planet.

Whilst some challenges and motorists can vary drastically amongst organisations, there are other individuals that remain amazingly dependable. Even when operating in distinct marketplace sectors, finance professionals uncover they share the exact same worries and are adopting related procedures to get over them.

How BlackLine helped two companies streamline their finance

IFM Investors

Linda Lee, Corporate Accounting Supervisor at financial company IFM Buyers, says her firm’s journey with BlackLine (a cloud-centered application solution for the fiscal shut course of action) and Tridant ( a technological innovation consultancy that implements BlackLine’s options) started about twelve months back. At that time, IFM Investors was on the hunt for a resource that could assist to make improvements to money processes.

“The company was wanting for a software to help with reconciliations and set improved controls in put,” she states. “Because we work in a range of international locations and offer with various currencies, this has turn into progressively difficult controlling business variations.”

Immediately after hunting at selections in the current market, a final decision was taken to deploy BlackLine, however Lee suggests it is often essential to undertake some key actions ahead of starting up out. “Before approaching a software like BlackLine, you need to fully grasp in detail your account and sub-account constructions,” she suggests. “You need to have to know how you want to manage that structure on an ongoing basis.”

Lee states it is also vital to be practical about what you are hoping to obtain and not stop up making as well lots of changes as well immediately. This can end result in user disappointment and not permit the organization to enjoy all the expected gains.

At the time BlackLine was in place, IFM Investors’ finance staff was swiftly looking at a amount of strengths. Workflows had been streamlined and a number of manual procedures both eradicated or automatic.

“It has improved our potential to show up at to products inside of reconciliations,” she says. “BlackLine highlights where by you have variances and delivers that to the fore. The finance team then sees and steps merchandise somewhat than needing to be chased.” Lee claims the firm’s exterior auditors also embraced the transform. They are now in a position to self-serve when it comes to obtaining money information fairly than owning to make continual requests.

“We’re also taking pleasure in the Groups features,” she says. “People can easily keep an eye on what others in the finance staff are doing and lend a hand when necessary. It’s grow to be far more of a team process.”

On the lookout ahead, Lee states she will be centered on bedding down a amount of initiatives and making sure the enterprises building the ideal achievable use of all the features that Blackline has to give.

Spirit of Tasmania

Anthea White, Business enterprise Enhancements Task Lead at delivery enterprise Spirit of Tasmania, states that, even though she experienced been aware of BlackLine for some time, it took a whilst to entirely fully grasp all the price it could supply.

“The catalyst for us was the hazards related with mistakes that can happen in Excel spreadsheets,” she suggests. “We experienced a single grasp spreadsheet masking off additional than 90 harmony sheet reconciliations, and there had been just far too several approaches that matters could probably go erroneous.”

After finishing a BlackLine implementation with Tridant in March of this calendar year, White says it immediately became clear it experienced been the proper shift. With the pandemic demanding personnel to function from residence, BlackLine was ready to supply dependable remote entry to main functions this sort of as bill management and account reconciliations.

“We’ve also enjoyed time savings owing to functionality advancements and the elimination of a number of handbook processes,” she suggests. “BlackLine’s notifications and workflows are good.”

Like Lee, White claims her exterior auditors also like the platform and located it quite simple to undertake. This took even more workload off the finance crew and will permit audits to be done much more rapidly. “We also now have a great deal greater visibility of what has been done and what nonetheless desires more work,” she claims.

Commenting on both of those case studies, Claudia Pirko, ANZ Regional Vice President at BlackLine, reported: “We seem forward to continuing our get the job done with IFM Traders and Spirit of Tasmania in buy to enable them make certain they are obtaining greatest worth from the platform.”