Let Us Count the Ways: Why Companies Running Oracle Choose BlackLine

Product sophistication, commitment to customers’ transformation success, and independence from IT—these are some of the reasons companies running Oracle choose BlackLine as their financial close partner.

Another reason is that BlackLine is ERP-agnostic and can maintain data integrity in companies that use other ERPs in addition to Oracle. And BlackLine can scale for multinational organizations with complex, multi-entity structures.

An example of an Oracle-based company choosing BlackLine is audio entertainment giant SiriusXM. The company was previously handling millions of credit card transactions each month and couldn’t reconcile transactional data from their order-to-cash process across multiple, disparate systems. In many cases, accountants couldn’t locate original files needed for documentation.

When SiriusXM decided to automate its close process, the company chose BlackLine for several reasons. SiriusXM considered BlackLine’s cloud-based platform a more sophisticated choice and felt BlackLine would be a reliable partner to help with building out their transformation.

SiriusXM has now implemented Account Reconciliations, Transaction Matching,

Task Management, and Journal Entry. Today, the company is able to match over 7 million transactions with 99.9% accuracy and has automated approximately 50% of their journals.

Another company, Dun & Bradstreet, was running Oracle but having difficulty maintaining consistent controls across its 70 worldwide operating entities.

“We used manual processes to determine if reconciliations were completed, documented, and reviewed properly,” says Gretchen Sikora, Dun & Bradstreet’s senior finance leader. “This created a potential for surprises during the financial close.”

After evaluating a number of solutions, the company chose BlackLine for its superiority in key functionalities and its projected ROI.

With BlackLine, Dun & Bradstreet was able to improve finance efficiency and bring new levels of trust to its accounting processes. The company eliminated manual processes so accounting teams could spend more time on critical work, such as analysis and tracking down discrepancies.

The company was able to centralize key accounting functions so that staff and auditors can now access information—and perform tasks—from anywhere in the world.

BlackLine also helped the accounting group restore trust in the monthly close. Notes Sikora, “I can sleep at night now. The potential for surprises has been greatly decreased. Audit and SOX can be 100% comfortable in stating that we have sufficient controls and support.”

BlackLine’s product integration, its cloud-based delivery method, and client-centric approach to implementation and support were also important to healthcare company Ascension, which operates the largest non-profit healthcare system in the US and the world’s largest Catholic system.

Among other advantages, BlackLine’s cloud-based delivery and customer-focused support meant that Ascension could avoid many IT barriers to implementation and wouldn’t need to hire outside consultants for implementation and support. Benefits include significant reductions in manual work and audit times, as well as a 338% ROI with payback in under a year.

Online reviewers echo these sentiments. Business software review company G2 gave BL sole possession of its leadership quadrant, with high marks for customer satisfaction and market presence.

For satisfaction ratings, 95% of users surveyed agreed that BlackLine is going in the right direction, and nearly 90% said they would recommend the company to a friend or colleague. For market presence, G2 said “BlackLine is the most validated financial close vendor. It has the highest number of reviews—more than 450 compared to an average of 53 reviews among other vendors.”

Other customer opinions reflect similar views on BlackLine’s dedication to customer transformation efforts.

From Gartner Peer Insights, one customer writes, “We moved to BlackLine and have been extremely pleased. We appreciate the continuous investments BlackLine makes in the platform and look forward to each upcoming release to see what new features will be made available.”

Another says, “BlackLine’s customer service is excellent; they are always available to help with issues that come up and the solutions are timely and professional.”

Read G2's 2021 Financial Close Software Grid report to discover why BlackLine is the only recognized Leader for two years running, with the highest scores for customer Satisfaction and Market Presence among all other vendors.