LOS ANGELES – Nov. 8, 2022 – Accounting automation software leader BlackLine, Inc. (Nasdaq: BL) today announced several new innovations including the BlackLine Accounting Studio – designed to help Finance and Accounting (F&A) leaders transform and modernize their operations via a single, controlled environment that unifies all of BlackLine’s market-leading solutions. The new offerings will be featured this week at BlackLine’s annual global conference BeyondTheBlack™ 2022.
Highlights of BlackLine’s enhanced platform functionality and new solutions include:
BlackLine Accounting Studio to unify, orchestrate and automate end-to-end processes
The BlackLine Accounting Studio will unify BlackLine’s existing solutions across the Financial Close Management, Accounts Receivable (AR) Automation and Intercompany Financial Management (IFM) categories, as well as other financial applications and ERPs, into a single, controlled environment. The new Studio is expected to fundamentally change how accounting work gets done by bringing together people, processes and data and enabling organizations to unify disparate financial data systems, orchestrate and design processes and embed automation every step along the way. With the Studio, F&A teams can optimize capacity and shift focus from manual, routine work to strategic initiatives.
The BlackLine Accounting Studio will provide a dedicated space for managing business and regulatory requirements, gathering data inputs, designing compliant processes, incorporating stakeholder feedback, executing plans and documenting work for reproducibility and reporting. The BlackLine Accounting Studio is designed to abstract the complexity of multiple F&A systems, ERPs and data flows, enabling customers to easily create and configure standardized process workflows with end-to-end automation and visually track the status of all tasks and overall accounting processes. The result will be greater visibility, efficiency and control across divisions and systems.
The initial iteration of the Studio will focus on financial close processes and is slated for general availability in Q2’2023.
Financial Reporting Analytics to control, validate and streamline financial statement analysis
BlackLine’s Financial Reporting Analytics is a new solution that enables analysis and validation of group-level financial data with direct, real-time visibility into the local or underlying details. Financial Reporting Analytics provides a centralized workspace with end-to-end transparency to ensure completeness and accuracy of consolidated fluctuation calculations. Customers will be able to review financial statements and execute variance analysis faster, eliminate time wasted on manual workflows, and redeploy resources to focus on the exceptions – replacing error-prone, reactive processes with a proactive, preventative approach that strengthens key controls.
Modern Accounting Playbook for Cash Application to help growing companies rapidly transform accounts receivable processes
With recessionary fears, soaring energy prices and rising inflation and interest rates around the world underscoring the importance of cash flow and working capital for businesses, BlackLine is introducing a new edition of its popular Modern Accounting Playbook (MAP) specifically for Cash Application. BlackLine’s MAP methodology provides prescriptive guidance based on leading practices derived from BlackLine’s experience working with thousands of midsize and enterprise companies. MAP for Cash Application helps organizations transform critical processes and achieve real-time visibility into AR with BlackLine’s Cash Application and AR Intelligence solutions.
BlackLine Cash Application intelligently applies customer payments to invoices automatically, achieving up to an 85% auto match rate, reducing manual effort, freeing up lines of credit and allowing AR professionals to focus on managing risk and collecting cash with full visibility and control. BlackLine AR Intelligence automatically analyzes customer behaviors, sales trends and payment outcomes to drive decisions on credit limits, risk policies, collection strategies and more.
BlackLine’s Modern Accounting Playbook for Cash Application combines these powerful solutions with unique expertise to guide customers through rapid implementation and automation of invoice-to-cash processes in as few as 90 days, to increase efficiency, save time and reduce risk.
BlackLine Connector for Microsoft Dynamics 365 to provide enhanced connectivity and data integrity
BlackLine has introduced a connector to provide Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations customers with confidence that their data in BlackLine’s cloud platform is complete and accurate without extra verification or manual steps. The new connector securely transmits the most up-to-date information, automatically retrieving general ledger account balances and transactions and formatting the data into BlackLine’s specifications for import. With BlackLine’s Microsoft Dynamics 365 Connector, accounting and finance teams can gain better control and visibility into the movement of data from Microsoft Dynamics 365 to BlackLine, resulting in enhanced data compatibility and greater accuracy.
“Organizations today are operating in an unpredictable and highly competitive economic and business landscape with more demand than ever on Finance and Accounting to focus on risk management, control environments and the optimization of cash flow,” said Marc Huffman, BlackLine’s CEO. “Manual accounting processes are simply not sustainable or fit for purpose in this environment. With our newest solution offerings and the introduction of the BlackLine Accounting Studio, we want to help our customers fundamentally change the way accounting work gets done. With modernized F&A processes, companies will benefit from improved working capital, greater data integrity, reduced risk, and enhanced visibility and control, which we believe will leave them in a far stronger position to respond to external challenges.”
BeyondTheBlack is BlackLine’s annual conference that for 14 years has brought together a global community focused on innovation and leadership in F&A. The new solutions and functionality unveiled at BeyondTheBlack 2022 follow the recent introductions of BlackLine’s AR Intelligence Customer Attractiveness Scoring and Tax Hyperautomation for IFM capabilities which also will be featured at the event.
BeyondTheBlack 2022 is taking place now (Monday to Wednesday, Nov. 7th to 9th) at the Bellagio Resort in Las Vegas. A complimentary livestream is available featuring keynotes and select panel sessions. For more information or to register to attend in person or virtually, go here.
About BlackLine
Companies come to BlackLine (Nasdaq: BL) because their traditional manual accounting processes are not sustainable. BlackLine’s cloud-based financial operations management platform and market-leading customer service help companies move to modern accounting by unifying their data and processes, automating repetitive work, and driving accountability through visibility. BlackLine provides solutions to manage and automate financial close, accounts receivable and intercompany accounting processes, helping large enterprises and midsize companies across all industries do accounting work better, faster and with more control.
More than 4,000 customers trust BlackLine to help them close faster with complete and accurate results. The company is the pioneer of the cloud financial close market and recognized as the leader by customers at leading end-user review sites including G2 and TrustRadius. BlackLine is a global company with operations in major business centers around the world including Los Angeles, New York, the San Francisco Bay area, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Singapore and Sydney. For more information, please visit blackline.com.
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