The challenge for companies is combining the various general ledgers and/or sub-ledgers in order to perform a tie-out between them and the consolidation system. This step is critical to ensure that all accounts are rolled up properly and any top-side entries or late adjustments aren’t missed.

BlackLine Systems has designed its Financial Close Suite to accommodate many different ledgers, all in one easily accessible instance. The Consolidation Integrity Manager module assists companies in defining relationships between the various general ledger and consolidation accounts. Defining these associations allows the application to automatically tie-out balances between the systems. This ensures that all balances are accounted for and that any balance changes due to top-side entries or late-posting adjustments are recognized in both the general ledger accounting and consolidation systems. The accounting staff can then focus their time on the exceptions, which streamlines the entire process.

When multiple ledgers are in use along with multiple currencies, clients typically upload the period-end currency exchange rates from their consolidation system (or system of record), facilitating a multi-currency reconciliation process.

Also of note, BlackLine’s Account Reconciliations module can import data from any number of ERP systems, and some clients use the Financial Close Suite with scores of different general ledger instances.

Learn more about BlackLine’s Consolidation Integrity Manager and Account Reconciliations modules and how they can help with your general ledger accounting.