Monthly Isn't Enough: The Case for High Frequency Reconciliations

Traditional monthly reconciliations are no longer sufficient for companies operating in high-volume, fast-paced environments, chock-full of regulatory or operational requirements. Thyra Williams, BlackLine's Vice President, GTM Solutions Management and Operations, notes, "organizations face a fundamental mismatch between their operational speed and their financial control processes."

For example, banking institutions process enormous transaction volumes while facing strict oversight from the Federal Reserve, FDIC, OCC, and NCUA. Retail operations handle hundreds of thousands of credit card settlements daily. Insurance companies manage complex claim payments across multiple systems.

These sectors share common pain points that traditional monthly reconciliation approaches have trouble addressing in a controlled, efficient, and accurate manner:

• High Transaction Volumes: Manual processing of millions of transactions creates bottlenecks and introduces significant error risk. Teams struggle to maintain accuracy while meeting tight deadlines.

• Regulatory Pressure: Financial institutions must reconcile key accounts, including suspense, clearing, and custodial accounts, daily or within very tight timeframes. Failure to comply carries serious consequences. Many other industries face stringent compliance requirements to meet regulatory standards and avoid significant penalties.

• Manual Process Dependency: Spreadsheets and disconnected tools strain resources, slow discrepancy identification, and create audit trail gaps. Teams spend valuable time on data manipulation rather than analysis.

• Delayed Risk Detection: When issues surface only at month-end, the investigation window narrows dramatically, increasing both financial and operational risk.

BlackLine's High Frequency Reconciliations (HFR) extends our Account Reconciliations solution to deliver efficiency, standardization, and control at whatever frequency your business demands. Whether daily, weekly, or custom intervals, HFR provides a controlled workspace that streamlines reconciliation processes while maintaining complete auditability and upholding industry mandates.

Williams says, “What’s so exciting about HFR is that the solution automatically contains transactions within defined timeframes, grouping current period activity with unresolved prior period items into a single, actionable view. This eliminates manual data filtering while providing clear, point-in-time account snapshots.”

BlackLine is delivering capabilities that empower finance teams to achieve greater efficiency and accuracy by eliminating manual efforts and providing real-time visibility into reconciliation processes. By leveraging automation and centralized workflows, businesses can reduce close times and enhance compliance effortlessly.

• Automated Transaction Organization: HFR automatically groups and surfaces key transaction activity each day, reducing manual sorting and accelerating exception handling.

• Integrated Workflow Management: Unlike bolt-on solutions, HFR operates within BlackLine's unified platform, working seamlessly with Transaction Matching, Journal Entry, and the broader record-to-report process.

• Point-in Time and Historical Visibility: View reconciliation status directly within current or prior reconciliations, providing essential context for investigation and decision-making.

• Transaction-Level Drill-Down: Access detailed transaction information instantly to investigate discrepancies and resolve issues quickly.

• Auto-Certification Capabilities: Leverage automation to streamline reconciliation approval processes while maintaining complete audit trails.

Early adopters of HFR are realizing significant, measurable improvements in their financial operations, as evidenced by direct feedback.

"At Sound Community Bank, we can already see what this will do not just for those of us on the accounting and finance side, but for our operations team and our clients as well.”

– Jennifer Mallon, Deputy CFO & Chief Accounting Officer

Enhanced Audit Readiness: As one Assistant Controller at a financial services company noted, “I have teams that are reconciling daily outside of BlackLine because they need to be able to produce a reconciliation from any given day, not just month-end, for the auditors and prove that it was prepared and approved. Being able to do this in BlackLine will allow us to have that same visibility we have at month-end and make it easier for the auditors to obtain.”

Increased Operational Efficiency: Teams are leveraging HFR to cut down on manual work and improve customer service. A financial services company said, “The value of HFR is the higher efficiency and automation to comply with the FDIC requirement of completing certain reconciliations on a weekly basis. It would save our accounting team manual work.”

Another financial services company remarked, “For banking, there are so many use cases that HFR will solve and provide not only solutions and efficiency for accounting but also for our operations teams and ultimately our customer service that we provide to our banking clients.”

Proactive Risk Reduction: A gaming services company said, “HFR facilitates more frequent and regular reconciliations, leading to up-to-date metrics that can be used to gauge potential issues proactively. With continuous monitoring and timely updates, [we] can identify trends and anomalies early on, allowing for swift corrective actions. This proactive approach helps in maintaining financial health and mitigating risks before they escalate into major problems.”

Significant Cost Optimization: The gaming services company also noted, “While the primary benefits of HFR revolve around time and accuracy, the indirect cost savings should not be overlooked. By reducing the need for manual intervention and rework due to errors, [we] can lower operational costs. Additionally, the efficiency gains from HFR can lead to better resource allocation and ultimately contribute to the company's bottom line.”

The record-to-report process represents the end-to-end financial cycle from initial transaction recording through accurate stakeholder reporting. This process includes journal entries, sub-ledger activity, reconciliations, adjustments, financial close, and financial statement creation.

Reconciliations serve as critical validation points within this cycle, ensuring general ledger accuracy aligns with sub-ledgers, bank accounts, and source systems. This verification step proves essential for accuracy, compliance, and stakeholder trust.

Williams clarifies that, “HFR complements rather than replaces monthly reconciliations. It provides specialized tools for managing dynamic accounts while strengthening overall record-to-report integrity. Organizations gain the ability to identify and resolve discrepancies immediately, reducing period-end surprises and improving financial statement accuracy.”

Selecting the right purpose-built technology to address the need to reconcile accounts on a more frequent basis represents more than an operational improvement—it’s a strategic decision to transform the function of your finance department. By embedding frequent, automated reconciliations into your record-to-report process, you can build a more resilient, accurate, and efficient finance function.