4-minute read
This monthly BlackLine update is published to keep you informed of customer success stories, upcoming events, helpful resources, best practices, and thought leadership from the leading cloud financial close solution.
In the News
Strategic CFO 360: Hunting for Unicorn Talent in Rebuilding the Finance Organization
In today’s business world, technical skills are just one feature of a great employee. Critical thinking, business know-how, and cultural fit are additional areas employers are considering when evaluating their team.
“Every CFO is looking for 'unicorn' talent, a specific combination of soft skills like data analysis, communications, collaboration, and leadership, in addition to the expected technical skills,” said Mark Partin, CFO at BlackLine.
This combination is often hard to find. As F&A teams continue to navigate the Great Resignation, attracting top talent with fulfilling roles is top of mind to not only human resources, but to finance executives as well.
Customer Story
Dentsu: Standardizing Reconciliations Across 64 Countries
The F&A team at international conglomerate Dentsu Group was challenged with both a team and clients distributed globally. With 50 different ERPs, standardization was top of mind as the accounting leaders set out to find a solution for the organization’s version-control woes.
With the ability to integrate with any GL or third-party system, they chose BlackLine as their single source of accounting truth.
“The greater visibility within BlackLine has helped us rationalize our chart of accounts,” says Group Finance Controller Paul Gordon. “We’ve reduced our number of accounts and suspended zero balance accounts in underlying ERPs.”
BlackLine Magazine
Sensiba San Filippo: Improve & Automate Your Account Reconciliation Process with BlackLine
Automating your reconciliation process is about more than just a reduced workload, says BlackLine partner Sensiba San Filippo. With true automation you achieve account accuracy, transparency, and consistency.
With standardized templates you can leverage across multiple entities and ERPs, BlackLine enables a singular process for performing this time-consuming month-end task. Role-based visibility allows global or account/entity specific views, and audits are eased with consistent documentation.
Best Practices
What’s the Future of Accounts Receivable?
With so much cash held hostage on the balance sheet, growing organizations are focusing in on the often-overlooked accounts receivables processes to ensure agility. This mindset shift from ‘can it be done’ to ‘how can it be done’ has pushed many companies to seek a modern AR solution to serve their team.
As you determine your team’s needs, here are our best practices for how to improve your accounts receivables processes:
How is your DSO currently vs. your target?
What does sales say about your process?
How has the cost of the AR team developed vs. the total cost of finance and total revenue?
Benchmark yourself against other companies in your industry
Interview a few customers to get their take on how you handle things
Speak with vendors about how they would re-design your process
