Created a risk-based approach to reconciliations. The BlackLine solution underpins Informa’s revamped reconciliations policy.

“Prior to BlackLine, we were managing 7,000 recs every month. That’s 7,000 workbooks every single month. Just producing that in spreadsheets is a cottage industry and not a great use of people's time,” says Redman.

“Now, with BlackLine, we use rules and automation to help us evaluate risk. In the beginning, we asked ourselves, ‘Under what circumstances do we reconcile once a year or twice a year for our interim audit and final audit?’ We’re quite risk averse, so we probably over reconcile, but right now we reconcile 1,200 twice a year and about 1,000 every quarter. We do the remaining 4,000 every month.”

The team also reports every month on the volume of risk items, which are then reviewed line by line with the group CFO and the divisional CFOs. “With BlackLine, we’ve clearly seen over time that we’ve had a significant reduction in the volume of risk items.”

Increased balance sheet integrity. Informa’s manual, spreadsheet-driven balance sheet reconciliation across three companies lacked visibility and standardization.   

“Previously, we were managing by intuition and now, with BlackLine, we're managing by facts and data. As a result, we’ve greatly enhanced the integrity of our balance sheet,” says Nick Redman.

“We can see trends, performance, and data. We’re in a position where we have visibility and transparency over the performance. We can see how many recs were done by workday, all the way through what it looks like by center. We can see where we have risk items, where our recs have been rated unacceptable and why. All of that is within BlackLine. That visibility, for me, is a huge benefit because what you can’t measure, you can’t improve.”

Enabled more value-added and strategic work. By greatly reducing the manual work of reconciliations, teams are able to work more strategically from a risk and materiality perspective.

“Because we’ve standardized the reconciliations process, we can move reconciliation work away from the senior accountants. We want them to stop spending time producing and instead focus on reviewing,” says Redman.

“They should be business partnering, owning the numbers, and providing quality assurance around the numbers. That’s what they’ll be able to do because we’re automating manual work and reducing risk with BlackLine.”

Streamlined audits. BlackLine helps Informa manage and meet reporting requirements. This has been especially helpful during audits.

“Before BlackLine, auditors had to ask multiple individuals in multiple centers to dig out spreadsheet reconciliations. Now they can just plug in to BlackLine. It’s a lot easier for us and saves time,” says Redman.

“In this day and age, mismatched, non-standardized spreadsheet files in a variety of storage places don’t look as good as everything being in the same format in one single tool. And the balance sheet is a significant part of what the auditors are testing when they’re reviewing your financial statements.”

Enabled standardization and increased controls across service centers and offshore teams. Prior to BlackLine, a lack of standardization and consistent processes hampered reconciliation quality.

“Previously, preparers were not only preparing recs but rating them, essentially marking their own ‘homework.’ And of course, you’re going to mark your own work as ‘well done,’” says Nick Redman. “With BlackLine, we’re now able to separate the production of the work from the review of the work. It’s the next step forward in improving the quality of our reconciliations.”