Saving 95 Hours Per Month and Increasing Efficiency with Fewer Staff
Pentagon Federal Credit Union (PenFed Credit Union) is America's second-largest federal credit union, serving 2.9 million members worldwide with over $31 billion in assets.
The Challenge
Over the years, PenFed’s reliance on manual accounting processes resulted in a lack of standardization, leaving the credit union open to increasing risk.
“We didn’t have a consistent reconciliations process,” says Legh Penrod, director of business unit accounting at PenFed.
“There were different styles and different templates. One person could be using three distinct templates. Some reconciliations would show liabilities as positives, and others would show them as negative. We had to correct a lot of mistakes.”
Why BlackLine
A change in leadership provided the perfect opportunity for digital transformation.
“We looked at a lot of different options out there,” says Penrod. “Not only was BlackLine the best solution, but we could implement it ourselves without having to wait for IT.”
Penrod knew an effective change management strategy was critical, especially for career accountants comfortable with the status quo.
“In the beginning, people were still using the spreadsheet templates and attaching them to reconciliations in BlackLine. But when we showed them a use case that could save them 30 hours a month, they quickly got on board.”
The Results
Saved 95 hours a month. Penrod and her team can now focus on more strategic work, like reporting and analytics.
“We’re digging into our reconciled items, a task we historically didn’t have time for. We’ve also created reporting packages for all our different areas. And for the first time, we’re holding monthly analytics meetings.”
Increased efficiency despite staff reductions. With BlackLine, PenFed is doing more with fewer employees.
“We’ve shrunk our accounting department by about 28%, and that’s been made possible by BlackLine,” says Penrod. “As people leave, we don’t have to backfill every position because of the efficiencies we’ve gained with BlackLine.”
Strengthened partnerships. With Transaction Matching, Penrod and her team have access to valuable data that benefits business partners.
“We’re able to give our partners more valuable insight. As a result, they can dig into their problems and solve them faster.”
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Pentagon Federal Credit Union's Blackline Journey
Banks & Credit Unions
Peoplesoft
United States
Midsize
Saved 95 hours a month.
Increased efficiency despite reductions in staff.
Strengthened partnerships.
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