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Increase accuracy and efficiency across your account reconciliation process and produce timely and accurate financial statements. Drive accuracy in the financial close by providing a streamlined method to substantiate your balance sheet.
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Turn payment data into actionable, real-time intelligence.
Automatically process and analyze critical information such as sales and payment performance data, customer payment trends, and DSO to better manage risk and develop strategies to improve operational performance.
Release cash from customers and reduce DSO.
Improve the prioritization of customer calls, reduce days sales outstanding, and watch productivity rise with more dynamic, accurate, and smarter collection management processes.
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Understand customer data and performance behaviors to minimize the risk of bad debt and the impact of late payments. Monitor changes in real time to identify and analyze customer risk signals.
Maximize your time with data-driven prioritization.
Make the most of your team’s time by automating accounts receivables tasks and using data to drive priority, action, and results. Monitor and analyze user performance, ensuring key actions quickly.
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Centralize, streamline, and automate end-to-end intercompany operations with global billing, payment, and automated reconciliation capabilities that provide speed and accuracy. Ignite staff efficiency and advance your business to more profitable growth.
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Centralize, streamline, and automate intercompany reconciliations and dispute management.
Seamlessly integrate with all intercompany systems and data sources. Automatically identify intercompany exceptions and underlying transactions causing out-of-balances with rules-based solutions to resolve discrepancies quickly.
Streamline and automate intercompany transaction netting and settlement to ensure cash precision.
Enable greater collaboration between Accounting and Treasury with real-time visibility into open transactions. Integrate with treasury systems to facilitate and streamline netting, settlement, and clearing to optimize working capital.
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The path from traditional to modern accounting is different for every organization. BlackLine’s Modern Accounting Playbook delivers a proven-practices approach to help you identify and prioritize your organization’s critical accounting gaps and map out an achievable path to success.
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BlackLine’s foundation for modern accounting creates a streamlined and automated close. We’re dedicated to delivering the most value in the shortest amount of time, equipping you to not only control close chaos, but also foster F&A excellence.
Invest in your future by unifying and automating accounting work.
To sustain timely performance of daily activities, banking and financial services organizations are turning to modern accounting and finance practices. It’s no longer a matter of whether or not to digitally transform. It’s a matter of when and how.
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To mitigate financial statement risk and increase operational effectiveness, consumer goods organizations are turning to modern accounting and leading best practices. Simply sticking with ‘the way it’s always been done’ is a thing of the past.
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While you are innovating to produce safe, reliable, and sustainable products and services, our solutions help accounting teams save time, reduce risk, and create capacity to support your organization's strategic objectives.
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Working capital, cash flows, collections opportunities, and other critical metrics depend on timely and accurate processes. Ensure services revenue has been accurately recorded and related payments are reflected properly on the balance sheet.
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To respond and lead amid supply chain challenges demands on accounting teams in manufacturing companies are higher than ever. Guide your business with agility by standardizing processes, automating routine work, and increasing visibility.
Tie out millions of transactions automatically.
Retailers are recalibrating their strategies and investing in innovative business models to drive transformation quickly, profitably, and at scale. Save time, reduce risk, and create capacity to support your organization's strategic objectives.
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You've transformed the way we experience the world. It's time to embrace modern accounting technology to save time, reduce risk, and create capacity to focus your time on what matters most.
BlackLine is part of your SAP financial mission control center. Our solutions complement SAP software as part of an end-to-end offering for Finance & Accounting. BlackLine solutions address the traditional manual processes that are performed by accountants outside the ERP, often in spreadsheets.
Global brands and the fastest growing companies run Oracle and choose BlackLine to accelerate digital transformation. BlackLine delivers comprehensive solutions that unify accounting and finance operations across your Oracle landscape.
Gain global visibility and insight into accounting processes while reducing risk, increasing productivity, and ensuring accuracy. Close the gaps left in critical finance and accounting processes with minimal IT support.
Adapt and innovate with a hyperconnected Accounting function and give everyone the insights and freedom to thrive by connecting your data, processes, and teams with intelligent automation solutions for accounting needs.
ESG is an opportunity for F&A teams to have a direct impact on how their organizations interact with the communities around them and how they deliver value to their stakeholders.
Rising labor costs and shifting expectations are contributing to unprecedented change in the labor market and altering the way companies and their executives think about talent management.
ERP transformations are business transformations. Finance and accounting expertise is not only needed to prevent ERP transformation failures, but F&A leaders are poised to help drive project plans and outcomes.
Finance and IT leaders share a common goal of equipping their organizations with ways to work smarter to enable competitive advantage. This intersection between CFO and CIO priorities is driving more unity in terms of strategy and execution.
F&A teams have embraced their expanding roles, but unprecedented demand for their time coupled with traditional manual processes make it difficult for F&A to execute effectively. Transformation is necessary to address these challenges.
F&A leadership can have a significant impact by creating sustainable, scalable processes that can support the business before, during, and long after the IPO. This company-wide effort crosses multiple functional areas and is reinforced by critical project management and a strong technology infrastructure.
Timely, reliable data is critical for decision-making and reporting throughout the M&A lifecycle. Without accurate information, organizations risk making poor business decisions, paying too much, issuing inaccurate financial statements, and other errors.
The revenue cycle refers to the entirety of a company’s ordering process from the time an order is placed until an invoice is paid and settled. The inability to apply payments on time and accurately can not only lock up cash, but also negatively impact future sales and the overall customer experience.
While the responsibility to maintain compliance stretches across the organization, F&A has a critical role in ensuring compliance with financial rules and regulations. Together with expanding roles, new expectations from stakeholders, and evolving regulatory requirements, these demands can place unsustainable strain on finance and accounting functions.
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More than 4,300 companies of all sizes, across all industries, trust BlackLine to help them modernize their financial close, accounts receivable, and intercompany accounting processes.
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BlackLine Services combine leading practices and expert guidance with best-in-class technology to help your F&A organization seamlessly implement sound processes and solutions, identify new opportunities for accounting optimization, and expand into areas you never imagined you would have the time to tackle.
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Whether planning your first implementation or expanding your BlackLine platform, leverage expert guidance to help you build and execute your vision, drive unified, automated, and continuous accounting processes, and enable Finance and Accounting to deliver strategic business value.
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Whether you're new to F&A or an experienced professional, sometimes you need a refresher on common finance and accounting terms and their definitions. BlackLine's glossary provides descriptions for industry words and phrases, answers to frequently asked questions, and links to additional resources.
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Our API-first development strategy gives you the keys to integrate your finance tech stack - from one ERP to one hundred - and create seamless data flows in and out of BlackLine.
Since our founding in 2001, BlackLine has become a leading provider of cloud software that automates and controls critical accounting processes.
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BlackLine is a high-growth, SaaS business that is transforming and modernizing the way finance and accounting departments operate. Our cloud software automates critical finance and accounting processes. We empower companies of all sizes across all industries to improve the integrity of their financial reporting, achieve efficiencies and enhance real-time visibility into their operations.
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BlackLine is an SAP platinum partner and a part of your SAP financial mission control center. Our solutions complement SAP software as part of an end-to-end offering for Finance and Accounting. BlackLine solutions address the traditional manual processes that are performed by accountants outside the ERP, often in spreadsheets.
The accounts receivable process is a multi-layered system that an accounting staff structures and implements to manage payments owed to the business.
Accounts receivable are payments owed to the business from customers for services or products delivered. The customer has not paid for the goods or service received at the time of the transaction. Instead, the business has extended credit to the customer and expects to receive payment for the transaction at some point in the future.
The method of communicating these debt obligations to customers, monitoring their payments, and ensuring that proper and complete payments are received involves several separate processes. Together, they comprise the accounts receivable process which is designed to ensure that the business receives the money owed to it so that it can maintain a steady cash flow for continued operation.
The accounts receivable process follows a cycle, beginning when the customer purchases an item or service from the business.
The cycle ends when payment has been collected for that purchase. A number of steps occur from beginning to end to help move the process along. These include invoicing, extending credit to the customer, monitoring and following up on payments, collecting full payment from the customer, and recording and reconciling payment in the general accounting ledger.
Accounts receivable consists of several different steps or processes within the larger process:
1. Purchase and purchase orders: There are no accounts receivable before there are sales. When a customer intends to purchase a good or service from the business, a purchase order details the pending transaction. Once it is approved, a sales order confirms the transaction.
2. Credit: Accounts receivable assumes that a transaction is made before payment has been received, and this implies that the customer has made a purchase on credit. Businesses adopt a series of policies and procedures that govern the extension of credit. It is very important for a business to evaluate a customer's creditworthiness before they make a purchase on credit to reduce the risk that the customer will default on payments.
3. Invoicing: Once a purchase has been made and the customer has been approved for credit, an invoice will document the details of the transaction. Typically, this includes such information as the name of the entity or unit providing the good or service, the recipient of the good or service (the customer), the good or service provided, the date on which it was provided, the quantity or amount that was provided, and the value of the resource that was exchanged. The details of the invoice are important to ensure that all parties to the transaction have the correct information.
4. Collections: All accounts receivable must eventually be collected. Just as businesses have credit policies and procedures, they have procedures in place for collecting payment. Collections management refers to the systems, methods, and procedures that a business has in place to oversee collections of unpaid bills from customers. An aging report tells a business how many days accounts receivable are outstanding. Dunning letters are sent to customers making them aware of outstanding payments.
5. Bad Debt: In an ideal world, all customers pay all their bills on time, all the time. In the real world, some customers do not. Some accounts receivables must be written off as bad debt. This is used to offset the short-term value of accounts receivable.
6. Cash Application: Once accounts receivable are collected, payments must be matched to the outstanding invoices they correspond to. Incoming cash can’t be utilized by a company until it has been properly assigned. It is important for a business to have an effective cash application process so incoming cash can be put to use quickly and efficiently. The sooner the money is applied, the sooner it can be used to pay salaries and bills, fill purchase orders, invest in other opportunities, and pay dividends to investors.
7. Dispute Resolution: Occasionally, customers may dispute invoices or collections. Businesses must have an effective dispute resolution process that it can employ to maintain good customer relations and process accounts receivable quickly.
8. Reporting/Analytics: Finally, once outstanding payments are received, businesses can analyze their accounts receivable. They employ various metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of their accounts receivable process. Metrics like the receivables to sales ratio, receivables turnover ratio, and days sales outstanding measure the volume of accounts receivable as a proportion to sales and the time it takes the business to convert receivables into cash. These help the business evaluate how much risk it is exposing itself to concerning payments from customers and how effective it is in collecting payments.
Businesses can do many things to ensure their accounts receivable process is efficient and effective.
1. Establish and Maintain Good Communication
All good systems involving customers require good communication. Expectations and guidelines concerning credit policies must be clearly conveyed to customers so they know what their payment obligations will be.
2. Maintain Accurate Invoices
Well-written, accurate invoices go a long way toward communicating the details of the transaction, including price and payment due, to the customer. Accurate information in the invoice ensures that there will be no misunderstandings leading to disputes after the transaction has already occurred.
3. Create Well Written Credit Policies and Guidelines
Well-written credit policies and guidelines help the business establish a comfortable level of risk, attract customers who fall within that level of risk, and provide guidelines to those customers about their payment obligations, as well as the interest, fees, and deadlines that will apply to their purchase.
4. Understand Your Customer
Businesses should also be flexible with customers and understand their behavior. Similarly, the business should give customers multiple options for payment. This includes incentives, like discounts for early payments. We live in a world of choices and customers will appreciate the opportunity to pay in the manner of their choosing. They also appreciate a nudge. Some customers don't pay until they are reminded.
5. Accounts Receivable Aging Process
An effective aging process allows the business to track and properly rank or prioritize outstanding payments. The aging report organizes individual accounts receivable into groups depending on how much they are past due. The typical groupings are:
● 0-30 days
● 31-60 days
● 61-90 days
● more than 90 days
The aging report will help the business organize and evaluate the status of its accounts receivable, which informs the process of collections. On that note, data is an essential ingredient.
6. Ensure Your Data is Accurate
Accurate dataabout transactions and outstanding payments will inform the rest of the process and enable the business to make good decisions about the steps that it takes for collections.
7. Establish A Good System for Monitoring Payment Reminders
A good system for monitoring and following up on paymentsis essential. Dunning letters are a standard form of reminder for customers. A systemized approach to sending letters ensures accuracy and consistency in the process.
Accounts receivable is an important accounting metric. They represent convertible assets owed to the company. In other words, they describe a financial resource that can be converted to cash in the near future, once the customer has paid.
However, accounts receivable is more than just an asset on paper. The business must maintain its ability to convert all accounts receivable to cash in order to remain a functioning operation. More specifically, a business must be able to convert sales into cash to have a healthy and consistent cash flow. Sustained revenue for the business is essential to pay for operating costs, like salaries and inventory. Without it, the business cannot continue to thrive and grow.
Therefore, a well-structured and managed accounts receivable process is vital to keep the business open and running smoothly. It is an important connection between sales and revenue, ensuring that beyond the initial step of customer transactions, sales are also converted to revenue and payments are received in a timely manner to support other operations within the business.
Similarly, the steps involved in accounts receivable must work together for them to be completely effective. Each step within the process functions independently to achieve a specific goal, such as invoicing and collections, but each also feeds into the larger process, and they must work together for it to run smoothly and efficiently.
The traditional accounts receivable process entails manual “touchpoints” at every junction along the way. This includes the process of generating invoices, entering data about customers and their transactions, monitoring outstanding payments, analyzing data, and following up with customers.
Automation software can digitize these steps by capturing data and entering it into a master data set. It can generate aging reports at regular intervals and trigger collection steps, such as dunning letters, at prescribed delays. This frees staff to perform other, higher-level duties, including analysis and decision-making, ensuring accuracy and consistency in the process.
Schedule a demo with BlackLine and we will show you how our accounts receivable automation software can maximize your working capital with the only unified platform for collecting cash, understanding cash flow, and automating AR processes. It's time for modern accounts receivable.