Have Your Transactions Met Their Match?

“Processes and methods used in Accounting can be underlined as scientific, and the decisions and estimation-making can be classified as art.” – How Accounting is Both an Art and Science

So often we hear people refer to various things as “an art” or “a science”. But how often do we hear something referred to as both?

Accounting is a combination of different types of activities, some of which are rooted solely in the accurate and consistent measurement of benchmarks—science. But, there are those other, more creative functions of Accounting that help guide nuanced decisions and forecast future results—art.

Recording Transactions

• Subledgers

• Transactions recorded directly to the GL

Accruals & Amortization

• Adjust subedger activity to GAAP

• Accrue for non-routine activities

Analysis

• Reconcile accounts

• Analyze versus prior period, budget, and forecast

Reporting

• Prepare financial statements

• Prepare business operations reporting

The aspects of Accounting that are more rules-based, or scientific, are the ones that are optimal opportunities for automation, yet many companies are still spending the vast majority of their time performing them, rather than focusing on the bigger picture.

It’s time to elevate and prioritize the artistic aspects of Accounting, such as decisions, estimations, and judgment. This means getting the right technology in place so you and your team can focus on the work you love.

Visibility: A single source of truth for accounting processes

• Real-time status

• Quality

• Ownership

• Risk

• Workload

Efficiency: Automation of accounting processes with real-time workflows

• More timely

• Lower costs

• Reduced overtime

• Increased productivity

Reliability: Standardization and documentation of processes

• Consistency

• Strong risk mitigation

• Trusted business partnership

• Greater value added

Through a combination of technology and process optimization, accounting and audits become controlled and predictable, accomplished with confidence.

Automation eliminates repetitive, error-prone tasks, and frees accountants to proactively partner with the business, apply their analytical capabilities, maximize their value, and consistently deliver trusted financial results.

When you look at your business, how much of this repetitive work is tied to matching transactions and creating journal entries for them?

With BlackLine Transaction Matching, you can match data from multiple source systems, automate high-volume reconciliations, and centralize and standardize processes.

Manage any transaction type, enforce rules-based, auditable workflows, and attach support to substantiate each reconciliation. And, quickly identify and address unmatched transactions, normalize data, and build scalable comparisons.

Here are three Valentines-themed transaction types, which we’ve identified to illustrate the power of our purpose-built matching engine.

Matches made in heaven:

• Suspense accounts

• Clearing accounts

• Escheatment

• Gift Cards

Opposites attract:

• AP accruals to payments

• PO receipts to invoices

• Cash receipts to bank deposits

• Cash disbursements to bank debits

Happily single:

• Automated journals

• Fraud analysis

• Reporting

• Visibility

Join us for our CPE-eligible Valentine’s Day webinar on February 13. Experts from BlackLine and RGP will explore how modern accounting solutions can automate the manual tick-and-tie process, so you can keep up with transactional growth.