6 minute read
Close faster with complete and accurate results.
Empower Accounting to manage and control the end-to-end financial close process by automating accounting workflows, providing a centralized and secure workspace to perform period-end accounting activities, and streamlining financial reporting.
Standardize, control, and streamline reconciliations.
Increase accuracy and efficiency across your account reconciliation process and produce timely and accurate financial statements. Drive accuracy in the financial close by providing a streamlined method to substantiate your balance sheet.
Drive visibility, accountability, and control across every accounting checklist.
Standardize, accelerate, and centrally manage accounting processes – from month-end close tasks to PBC checklists – with hierarchical task lists, role-based workflows, and real-time dashboards.
Match, analyze, and reconcile millions of transactions in minutes.
Streamline and automate detail-heavy reconciliations, such as bank reconciliations, credit card matching, intercompany reconciliations, and invoice-to-PO matching all in one centralized workspace.
Centralize, manage, and automate journal entries.
Create, review, and approve journals, then electronically certify, post them to and store them with all supporting documentation. Automatically create, populate, and post journals to your ERP based on your rules.
Elevate control in the cloud.
Unify all compliance documentation, projects, and stakeholders in one globally accessible, cloud platform to maximize visibility. Link controls to related risks, narratives, and projects, and ensure version control.
Continuously monitor for risk with automated fluctuation analysis.
Calculate and identify account balance and activity fluctuations automatically to continuously monitor for risk, ensure the effective and timely execution of critical management review controls, and support agile decision-making.
Simplify, standardize, and automate your financial close in SAP.
Streamline and automate activities in SAP with task scheduling and execution, activity monitoring, and outcome verification.
Maximize working capital and release cash from your balance sheet.
Maximize working capital with the only unified platform for collecting cash, providing credit, and understanding cash flow. Transform your accounts receivable processes with intelligent AR automation that delivers value across your business.
Apply customer payments to invoices automatically.
Transform your order-to-cash cycle and speed up your cash application process by instantly matching and accurately applying customer payments to customer invoices in your ERP.
Create and operate risk polices with dynamic insights.
Understand customer data and performance behaviors to minimize the risk of bad debt and the impact of late payments. Monitor changes in real time to identify and analyze customer risk signals.
Release cash from customers and reduce DSO.
Improve the prioritization of customer calls, reduce days sales outstanding, and watch productivity rise with more dynamic, accurate, and smarter collection management processes.
Resolve customer disputes promptly to collect debt.
Accelerate dispute resolution with automated workflows and maintain customer relationships with operational reporting. Unlock full control and visibility of disputes and provide better insight into how they impact KPIs, such as DSO and aged debt provisions.
Maximize your time with data-driven prioritization.
Make the most of your team’s time by automating accounts receivables tasks and using data to drive priority, action, and results. Monitor and analyze user performance, ensuring key actions quickly.
Turn payment data into actionable, real-time intelligence.
Automatically process and analyze critical information such as sales and payment performance data, customer payment trends, and DSO to better manage risk and develop strategies to improve operational performance.
Unlock growth capacity with tax-effective intercompany operations.
Centralize, streamline, and automate end-to-end intercompany operations with global billing, payment, and automated reconciliation capabilities that provide speed and accuracy. Ignite staff efficiency and advance your business to more profitable growth.
Centralize and streamline end-to-end intercompany operations.
Structure and automate intercompany transactions to maximize operational efficiency while improving deductibility and reducing tax leakage.
Get set up quickly for a streamlined and automated close.
The path from traditional to modern accounting is different for every organization. BlackLine’s Modern Accounting Playbook delivers a proven-practices approach to help you identify and prioritize your organization’s critical accounting gaps and map out an achievable path to success.
Save time and cost, decrease risk, and elevate the organization.
BlackLine’s foundation for modern accounting creates a streamlined and automated close. We’re dedicated to delivering the most value in the shortest amount of time, equipping you to not only control close chaos, but also foster F&A excellence.
Invest in your future by unifying and automating accounting work.
To sustain timely performance of daily activities, banking and financial services organizations are turning to modern accounting and finance practices. It’s no longer a matter of whether or not to digitally transform. It’s a matter of when and how.
Adapt to changing consumer preferences with agile accounting.
To mitigate financial statement risk and increase operational effectiveness, consumer goods organizations are turning to modern accounting and leading best practices. Simply sticking with ‘the way it’s always been done’ is a thing of the past.
Energize your accounting team by creating capacity with automation.
While you are innovating to produce safe, reliable, and sustainable products and services, our solutions help accounting teams save time, reduce risk, and create capacity to support your organization's strategic objectives.
Align healthcare accounting teams to revenue-driving activities.
Working capital, cash flows, collections opportunities, and other critical metrics depend on timely and accurate processes. Ensure services revenue has been accurately recorded and related payments are reflected properly on the balance sheet.
Unlock capacity and strengthen resilience by automating accounting.
To respond and lead amid supply chain challenges demands on accounting teams in manufacturing companies are higher than ever. Guide your business with agility by standardizing processes, automating routine work, and increasing visibility.
Tie out millions of transactions automatically.
Retailers are recalibrating their strategies and investing in innovative business models to drive transformation quickly, profitably, and at scale. Save time, reduce risk, and create capacity to support your organization's strategic objectives.
Transform the way you work.
You've transformed the way we experience the world. It's time to embrace modern accounting technology to save time, reduce risk, and create capacity to focus your time on what matters most.
BlackLine is part of your SAP financial mission control center. Our solutions complement SAP software as part of an end-to-end offering for Finance & Accounting. BlackLine solutions address the traditional manual processes that are performed by accountants outside the ERP, often in spreadsheets.
Global brands and the fastest growing companies run Oracle and choose BlackLine to accelerate digital transformation. BlackLine delivers comprehensive solutions that unify accounting and finance operations across your Oracle landscape.
Gain global visibility and insight into accounting processes while reducing risk, increasing productivity, and ensuring accuracy. Close the gaps left in critical finance and accounting processes with minimal IT support.
Adapt and innovate with a hyperconnected Accounting function and give everyone the insights and freedom to thrive by connecting your data, processes, and teams with intelligent automation solutions for accounting needs.
In good company.
More than 3,900 companies of all sizes, across all industries, trust BlackLine to help them modernize their financial close, accounts receivable, and intercompany accounting processes.
Powerful technology is only part of the story.
To truly transform your finance and accounting processes, you need the guidance of a trusted partner. Our proven approach has helped thousands of customers identify and address bottlenecks to free up capacity, strengthen controls, and deliver measurable results.
Your playbook for rapid success and proven value.
Using our unique experience and expertise, we will help you identify your most pressing accounting challenges and quickly deploy our software by providing a clear vision and predictable, confident delivery and implementation.
Rich learning resources for every stage of your journey
One of the critical success drivers for any software deployment is user adoption through effective training. We created BlackLine U to ensure successful onboarding and continuous education, useful for both new customers and those expanding globally.
Industry-leading customer support anytime, anywhere
BlackLine provides global product support across geographies, languages, and time zones, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. We are here for you with industry-leading support whenever and wherever you need it.
Integrate your accounting operations with open APIs.
Our API-first development strategy gives you the keys to integrate your finance tech stack - from one ERP to one hundred - and create seamless data flows in and out of BlackLine.
Join an exclusive community of more than 300,000 accounting professionals.
BlackLine users around the world get access to key resources to develop expertise, interact with peers in F&A to exchange ideas and leading practices, and share their feedback to guide future product development.
Connect with peers across Finance & Accounting.
Whether new to BlackLine or a longtime customer, we curate events to guide you along every step of your modern accounting journey.
Hear from F&A thought leaders and customers like you.
Explore our schedule of upcoming webinars to find inspiration, including industry experts, strategic alliance partners, and boundary-pushing customers. And, earn CPE credits while you're at it.
Catch up on the latest finance transformation guidance.
Check out our most recent webinars dedicated to modern accounting. If you recently attended webinar you loved, find it here and share the link with your colleagues.
Dive into digital finance transformation.
Explore the future of accounting over a cup of coffee with our curated collection of white papers and ebooks written to help you consider how you will transform your people, process, and technology.
Stay on top of the latest accounting trends.
BlackLine Magazine provides daily updates on everything from companies that have transformed F&A to new regulations that are coming to disrupt your day, week, and month. Check back often for the latest commentary and guidance.
Brush up on key accounting terms.
Whether you're new to F&A or an experienced professional, sometimes you need a refresher on common finance and accounting terms and their definitions. BlackLine's glossary provides descriptions for industry words and phrases, answers to frequently asked questions, and links to additional resources.
We are here for your mission-critical accounting operations.
BlackLine provides global product support across geographies, languages, and time zones, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. We are here for you with industry-leading support whenever and wherever you need it.
Since our founding in 2001, BlackLine has become a leading provider of cloud software that automates and controls critical accounting processes.
Companies come to BlackLine because their traditional manual accounting processes are not sustainable. We help them move to modern accounting by unifying their data and processes, automating repetitive work, and driving accountability through visibility.
BlackLine's leadership team is built on experience and expertise. Every executive is committed to ensuring transformational success for every customer.
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BlackLine is a high-growth, SaaS business that is transforming and modernizing the way finance and accounting departments operate. Our cloud software automates critical finance and accounting processes. We empower companies of all sizes across all industries to improve the integrity of their financial reporting, achieve efficiencies and enhance real-time visibility into their operations.
In addition to accolades for the quality, performance and benefits of our software, BlackLine has been the recipient of many industry awards recognizing the fast growth of the company, outstanding achievements of members of the management team and exceptional customer service.
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Delivering Succesful Digital Transformations
Global and regional advisory and consulting firms bring deep finance domain expertise, process transformation leadership, and shared passion for customer value creation to our joint customers. Our consulting partners help guide large enterprise and midsize organizations undergoing digital transformation by maximizing and accelerating value from BlackLine’s solutions.
Guiding Customers to Long-Term Success
BlackLine’s Solution Providers are experienced business software resellers who know and understand the finance and accounting function and the associated challenges that organizations face. They ensure our customers’ success with BlackLine from the initial solution validation process through deployments and long-term customer care and long-term success.
Integrate Your Finance Tech Stack
BlackLine and our ecosystem of software and cloud partners work together to transform our joint customers’ finance and accounting processes. Together, we provide innovative solutions that help F&A teams achieve shorter close cycles and better controls, enabling them to drive better decision-making across the company.
Driving Automation with Your Outsourcing Provider
BlackLine partners with top global Business Process Outsourcers and equips them with solutions to better serve their clients and achieve market-leading automation, efficiencies, and risk control. By outsourcing, businesses can achieve stronger compliance, gain a deeper level of industry knowledge, and grow without unnecessary costs.
May 24, 2022
6 minute read
If done correctly, intercompany accounting—the management of financial transactions between separate legal entities that belong to the same corporate group—should be an asset, not a liability. However, due to its complexity and pervasiveness throughout multinational corporations, intercompany deficiencies can bring all kinds of problems to your business.
Identifying intercompany issues within a multi-national organization with complex processes is a major challenge. What are the indicators that an organization has intercompany issues? What red flags should senior management recognize so intercompany can be addressed before problems get out of hand?
Fortunately, it is possible to simplify the complex. By knowing what to look for, you can reduce costs and improve efficiencies. To help you achieve this goal, here is a summary of the most common intercompany red flags.
1. Unreconciled intercompany accounts: look to see if your organization is carrying a significant intercompany balance because intercompany counterparties cannot be readily identified
2. A large intercompany Center of Excellence (COE): costly COE teams that are larger than necessary for the number and interoperability of corporate entities indicates an intercompany problem and an opportunity to streamline things
3. Tax audit issues: past tax audits continuously turning up intercompany issues or internal auditors regularly tuning into intercompany vulnerabilities
4. Transfer pricing reviews: constant reviews of transfer pricing indicate you may need to restate your accounts
5. Disputes: if you find yourself going through disputes every month or every quarter, it’s a sign of an intercompany issue
6. Unsettled balances: keep a close eye on balances sitting unsettled for lengthy periods of time
7. Lack of transparency: if you don’t know which team or department is working on intercompany transactions, more than likely problems abound
Once you know to be on the lookout for intercompany red flags, you can start to make intercompany transactions easier.
In addition to those seven intercompany red flags, you should also watch out for department-specific red flags.
To catch intercompany red flags, your treasury department is going to be taking note of what is and isn’t getting settled. They’re going to examine the different foreign exchange (FX) contracts they have and how much they’re spending. In the event they have multiple FX contracts, they need to be cognizant of where their intercompany is going, how they are transacting, and in what currencies.
Treasury also needs to examine cash flow. Where is the cash moving? Is cash not being moved? Is it getting stored in a certain area? In addition, they need to scrutinize transaction fees. How often and how much are they paying to settle invoices? Are they able to net invoices together into one payment rather than hundreds of individual payments? The answers to these questions will help your treasury team identify intercompany systems that need improvement.
Accounting will identify an intercompany issue when noticing a lot of variances while attempting to tie out multiple reports. They could also come across unreconciled accounts and variances in accounts that remain completely unresolved.
Another red flag for accounting happens when accounting sees a lot of reclassifications. When transactions are regularly corrected in the ledger, there are problems upstream. Identifying which transactions are regularly reclassified gives you an idea of where to look.
Intercompany issues typically bleed out into other areas during close, which makes them easy to spot. And, if the accounting team is spending a lot of time on calls about intercompany as close approaches, that’s another red flag.
A big red flag for the human resources team is seeing burnt-out, frustrated finance employees, working around the clock to close the books at the end of the month or quarter. HR also plays a big part in helping companies build out shared service centers. They are responsible for the planning and staffing of the shared service center, so they should have insights on how well that team is working.
The accounts payable team analyzes everything during and after the close to follow the trends. As a result, they will be impacted by intercompany problems, as well. They’re examining the tax impacts, the people impact, the costs, the cash, and anything financial, so they’re definitely going to be alerted to the impact of any intercompany issue.
It is the responsibility of the FP&A team to reach forecast targets and to ensure that whatever they estimated or budgeted for is in line. So, if your numbers are off, and you can’t explain it, they have to start digging in, which is typically a sign of intercompany gone wrong.
The nature of the intercompany process itself has the potential to trigger multiple tax red flags. Red flags for the tax team appear when they cannot defend the tax deductibility of an intercompany service transaction. Other red flags include inappropriate or inconsistent transfer-price markups and if the portion of the total invoice is not allocated proportionally to all entities involved.
Another tax red flag is caused by a lack of sufficient documentation on intercompany charges. An automated process guided by robust technology can ensure that intercompany services are detailed with more specificity, the transfer price is arrived at properly, the costs are allocated across entities appropriately, and the right indirect tax is applied and paid. In addition, automation can reduce or eliminate red flags by giving detailed and immediate insight into the cost details of the services provided and their allocation, which greatly enhances the ability to defend the tax deductibility of the charges.
Armed with an understanding of the many intercompany red flags that can affect your close better prepares you to deal with the issues as they arise and prevent them from getting out of hand.
Get your copy of the white paper Stop Guessing, Start Automating: How to Turn Intercompany's Distraction into Action to learn about three innovative solutions to help you automate intercompany processes: Create, Balance & Resolve, and Net & Settle.