Red Wing was previously using Excel spreadsheets and email to manage their day-to-day accounting activities. The legacy accounting system lacked standardization and controls; thus, as the company grew, managing the financial processes became increasingly inefficient and laborious. Spreadsheets were housed across four geographic locations, key controls were manual and time-consuming, and without a centralized repository of accounting data, the Controllership lacked visibility into the completeness of its financials.

Manually preparing a high volume of monthly reconciliations, the finance team was understaffed and unable to resolve reconciling items timely. The backlog of unreconciled cash transactions posed a significant auditing risk. Each journal entry also had to be approved via email and then saved in a shared drive. The process proved time-consuming, and management had difficulty implementing traceability or accountability measures. These issues would often lead to missing deposits from the ledger and out-of-date financials, increasing the risk of undetected fraud.

Recognizing the need to modernize its accounting process, Red Wing began searching for a dedicated financial close and consolidation (FCC) software solution in 2017. The company considered the software services of Trintech and BlackLine, before selecting BlackLine for the following reason:

• Consolidation. Red Wing’s priority was to achieve organizational visibility by consolidating all its financial processes and data in a single location, as well as implement standardization and controls over its workflows. Red Wing selected BlackLine because it provided a comprehensive solution platform with multiple applications to address various elements of their accounting processes, from reconciliations and transaction matching to journal entry and reporting.

• Usability. Another consideration was reducing labor and time input as the accounting teams needed to manage an increasing workload without driving up headcount. BlackLine’s seamless user interface design and intuitive guided workflow enabled Red Wing to quickly onboard both new and existing employees. In addition to the solution’s range of functionality and ease of use, BlackLine’s customer support and wholistic training services were also deciding factors.