How The Wendy’s Company is Building Future-Ready Financial Operations with BlackLine
In the hyper-competitive quick-service restaurant industry, growth isn't just a goal —it's survival. For The Wendy's Company (Wendy's), an iconic global brand in the QSR industry, its ambitious expansion strategy in 2024 required a financial infrastructure that could scale with speed and precision. While their recently implemented Oracle Fusion ERP provided a strong foundation for core processes, the leadership team recognized an opportunity to further enhance agility and control within their close process. This moment sparked a powerful partnership with BlackLine, a decision that went beyond a simple software update to fundamentally redefine financial control and agility for a new era of growth.
The Challenge
As Wendy s focused on its growth strategy to expand its restaurant footprint, its finance and accounting teams recognized an opportunity to evolve their processes to match their growth. The increasing volume of transactions presented an opportunity for greater efficiency, and the planned sunset of a legacy tool provided a well-timed moment to enhance their approach to financial operations.
The goal was to select a strategic partner and platform that could streamline processes, empower the finance team, and integrate seamlessly with their Oracle Fusion ERP. There was an opportunity extended beyond replacing a single tool; it was a chance to find a strategic partner and a platform that could streamline business processes, empower the finance team, and allow the restaurant operations to focus on customer experiences. Wendy's sought a modern, businessled solution that could handle high-volume transactions and support the next stage of their technology journey
Why BlackLine
Wendy's chose BlackLine to strategically enhance and extend its Oracle Fusion ERP environment. The decision, made in close partnership between finance and IT leadership, was pivotal in creating a flexible, best-in-class finance technology stack. “Together, Oracle and BlackLine are enabling the kind of growth we need to support Wendy’s future,” says Carmen Scott, Senior Director of Operational Accounting & Finance Technology at Wendy’s. “The two systems fit well together.”
Empowering Finance, Enabling IT: A Win-Win
A key factor in the decision was selecting a solution that benefited both the business and technology teams. For IT, BlackLine met the criteria for a modern enterprise platform: it offered robust security, end-to-end auditability, required minimal custom code, and was designed for seamless interoperability. This low-customization, platform-based approach was a strategic choice that allowed the IT team to focus on other high-impact initiatives.
For the finance team, this meant gaining more direct control over their processes. “The most impactful aspect is the amount of ownership we have in the successful utilization of the system,” says Carmen. “With BlackLine, the system is so intuitive and user-friendly that our dedicated admin sits in the business instead of IT.” This allows the business to be more agile and self-sufficient within a secure, IT-sanctioned framework.
Building a Future-Ready Operation
This new model of business-led ownership provides the agility and scalability Wendy's needs to be future ready. "Being future-ready at Wendy's means being on the right systems and platforms... to be able to grow and be scalable and be ready to shift and change at the drop of a dime," Carmen explains. BlackLine provides a standardized, extensible platform that can easily adapt to market changes or international expansion. "BlackLine helps us build a future-ready operation," she concludes.
A Partnership Beyond Technology
Ultimately, Wendy’s success is rooted in a partnership that extends beyond the software itself. The finance team gained invaluable access to BlackLine’s network of experts, peer organizations, and knowledge-sharing events. By connecting with other leaders in finance transformation, Wendy’s was able to learn best practices, share insights, and solve challenges collaboratively, creating a strong foundation of support for their ongoing journey. "Beyond the technology, one of the greatest benefits of BlackLine is the access it provides to a community of peers. The ability to connect with other finance leaders, share best practices, and learn from their experiences has been invaluable. It's a network that helps us all elevate our own financial operations." This synergy, built on a foundation of shared goals between finance and IT, is what continues to drive their transformation forward.
Change Management: A Journey of Transition and Transformation
Wendy's approached this operational shift as a deliberate, multi-phase journey. BlackLine partner, Sum Theory, guided the team through their transition. Their deep understanding of both Wendy's legacy system and the new BlackLine platform was a key factor in managing the change. As Carmen recalls, "They knew where we were coming from and where we were going because they had so much BlackLine experience." This expertise was important for a smooth and successful transition.
Phase 1: Transition, Building a New Foundation
The initial phase focused on establishing a new, modern foundation for financial operations by moving core processes like cash matching and balance sheet reconciliations to the BlackLine platform. This approach enabled the team to quickly adapt and see immediate benefits. The success of this transition was a direct result of the focused collaboration between all teams.
Phase 2: Transformation, Driving Continuous Value
The second, and ongoing, phase concentrates on leveraging this new foundation to fully optimize processes. This stage is about exploring advanced BlackLine functionality to drive further automation, unlock deeper business insights, and continuously improve financial operations.
The Results
The implementation of BlackLine has resulted in improved efficiencies and accuracy across several of Wendy’s critical accounting functions:
Streamlined Cash Matching: One of the most immediate and impactful improvements was seen in the cash matching process. BlackLine enabled a 73% increase in the auto-match rate for reconciliations, dramatically reducing manual effort and accelerating the close. Carmen Scott highlights the qualitative shift, adding, "Our cash matching process with BlackLine now is just a better process. It's faster, it's smarter, and we get better every time we do it because the team has much more control and visibility within the system and can make better decisions on what we're matching." This enhanced capability allows Wendy's to manage millions of daily transactions across hundreds of bank accounts with speed and precision.
Matching Capabilities: BlackLine's matching capabilities have been a standout, offering functionality not available in other systems. This feature has enabled Wendy’s to automate the reconciliation of transactions between bank accounts, subledgers, and the general ledger. By automating what was once a labor-intensive, error-prone process, Wendy’s has not only accelerated reconciliations but also significantly strengthened financial controls, increased accuracy, and improved compliance, minimizing the risk of discrepancies.
Automated Certifications: The platform also provides significant time savings through its auto-certification functionality. “We immediately started saving time with auto certification turned on and are not spending time... on reconciliations that have a zero balance, no variance, or no change from the prior period,” says Carmen. This automation eliminates the need for manual review and sign-off on accounts with no activity, freeing up valuable time for the finance team to focus on more complex tasks.
Efficient Journal Entries: BlackLine facilitates seamless journal entry generation and imports into Wendy's Oracle Fusion ERP. For Wendy’s currently, their journal entry automation extends to recording various cash activities, prepaid amortizations, and adjustments, integrating seamlessly with Account Reconciliations and Transaction Matching to provide even more efficiency. This reduces the burden of manual journal entries, saving the team time and ensuring greater accuracy and consistency in financial reporting.
The Human Element: An Energized and Empowered Team
The greatest impact has been on the finance team itself. The shift from transaction work to more strategic analysis has boosted morale and energized the team, largely due to the empowerment they feel and the intuitiveness of the new system. "The team is getting energized; they're excited about using the system," Carmen shares. The positive change has been significant. "I have somebody on my team ready for their next development move and they were rethinking what that next move would be because they don’t want to stop using the BlackLine system…this enthusiasm reflects how empowering the new tools have been for the team.” says Carmen.
Retail
Oracle Fusion
United States
Enterprise
Automated Manual Work
Empowered Teams, Improved Efficiency
Created a Culture of Continuous Innovation