Shifting from Manual Accounting to Strategic Analytics After Saving 40+ Hours a Week
The Challenge
The United Nations Federal Credit Union offers banking, investment, and insurance products and services to more than 200,000 members of the global UN community across 200 countries. Founded in 1947 and based in New York City, UNFCU has over 700 employees and $8.9 billion in total assets.
Growth in recent years magnified the challenges that UNFCU faced with a manual approach to finance and accounting (F&A). Complexity rose with increasing transaction volumes from many different sources and many types of data identifiers. Finance leaders recognized that accounting was draining time and resources, relying on paper documentation and double data entry into spreadsheets and the UNFCU ERP.
Why BlackLine
BlackLine’s ease of use and capacity for swift deployment stood out as UNFCU evaluated technologies in the finance automation space. “We started looking for a solution to get us out of paper, and luckily, we found BlackLine,” says David Gruss, assistant controller. “It was much easier than any of the other solutions. It was a much shorter timeframe to get us up and running and to get to where we needed to be.”
Gruss says that selecting an individual as a “BlackLine champion” can help organizations enhance value. “Choose someone who can dedicate their time and be the champion, the expert, the leader of BlackLine for your organization,” Gruss says. “That person not only will help you implement it, but will help you continually improve it over time. It keeps the evolution of accounting moving forward for your organization.”
The Results
BUSINESS RESULTS
Saving 40 hours a week. In a first use case with BlackLine, UNFCU began auto-matching its wire transactions with remarkable results. Automation saved “a whole person per day,” Gruss says, or the equivalent of roughly 40 hours per week of mundane tasks that used to be handled manually.
Auto-matching 99% of transactions. In another substantial time savings, UNFCU later aimed BlackLine at debit card transactions that total about 800,000 per month. The credit union is now auto-matching 99% of those transactions, freeing staff to focus on more value-adding work.
Increased capacity without adding headcount. Despite rising transaction volumes, UNFCU has not needed to increase accounting headcount in its 4.5 years using BlackLine. Capabilities such as Journal Entry have boosted efficiency: “Journals removed so much paper off my desk, and it removed people having to hand me something,” Gruss says.
Increased focus on strategic analysis. Relieved of manual work, some accounting staff have transitioned into value-increasing roles such as analyzing the profitability of UNFCU products. “Instead of doing journals and reconciling, they're actually able to analyze and provide value to the organization,” Gruss says.
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“The more you're able to use BlackLine to get you through all those mundane tasks.
Financial Services
MS Dynamics Great Plains
Global
Enterprise
Saving 40 hours a week
Auto-matching 99% of transactions
Increased capacity without adding headcount
Increased focus on strategic analysis
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