Journal Entry Management
Preparing, posting, approving, and validating manual journal entries is a top drain on accounting teams’ capacity. Further, journal entry testing is often one of the most time-consuming aspects of an audit.
SAP S/4HANA provides enhancements to the journal entry process compared to SAP ECC. Specifically, SAP Fiori provides an improved user interface and simplifies the process with fewer screen changes and fields to populate.
SAP S/4HANA also offers resources to simplify the journal entry process with Similar Journey Entry, to replicate journals with minor changes, and Mass Processing, to upload directly from Excel. Workflows and other rules-based functionality can be enabled for a more streamlined process.
SAP Account Substantiation & Automation by BlackLine extends and complements SAP S/4HANA with additional automation capabilities, real-time connectivity to SAP and other ERPs, and incremental audit benefits.
The journal entry functionality within SAP Account Substantiation & Automation by BlackLine is fully integrated with its account substantiation and transaction reconciliation capabilities. This allows for the automation of not just the journal entry, but the accounting processes from end to end.
For example, manual journal entries are often identified during the balance sheet substantiation process. When this occurs, adjusting entries can be created and posted directly from the BlackLine cloud without having to leave the balance sheet substantiation process. Further, many recurring and non-recurring journal entries impact the balance sheet, and therefore must be substantiated at period-end. SAP Solution Extensions by BlackLine streamline this process by allowing users to prepare, support, and approve a journal entry in the cloud platform, and then simply attach it to the corresponding account reconciliation. This eliminates the need for additional steps, approvals, and supporting documentation and allows auditors to trace the connection between activities.
Finally, SAP Account Substantiation & Automation by BlackLine can simplify and reduce audit testing. Isolating a population of manual journal entries is a challenge, as auditors often will not accept the document type or other SAP criteria as a journal entry indicator. In addition, providing supporting documentation for testing samples can be time-consuming.
With SAP Solution Extensions by BlackLine as the starting point and repository for all entries and support, including SAP and non-SAP ERPs, auditors can more easily understand the process, test completeness, and make self-service selections without additional company resources.