Close faster with complete and accurate results.
Empower Accounting to manage and control the end-to-end financial close process by automating accounting workflows, providing a centralized and secure workspace to perform period-end accounting activities, and streamlining financial reporting.
Standardize, control, and streamline reconciliations.
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.
Drive visibility, accountability, and control across every accounting checklist.
Standardize, accelerate, and centrally manage accounting processes – from month-end close tasks to PBC checklists – with hierarchical task lists, role-based workflows, and real-time dashboards.
Match, analyze, and reconcile millions of transactions in minutes.
Streamline and automate detail-heavy reconciliations, such as bank reconciliations, credit card matching, intercompany reconciliations, and invoice-to-PO matching all in one centralized workspace.
Centralize, manage, and automate journal entries.
Create, review, and approve journals, then electronically certify, post them to and store them with all supporting documentation. Automatically create, populate, and post journals to your ERP based on your rules.
Control, validate, and streamline financial statement analyses.
Perform pre-consolidation, group-level analysis in real-time with efficient, end-to-end transparency and traceability. Reduce risk and save time by automating workflows to provide more timely insights.
Continuously monitor for risk with automated fluctuation analysis.
Calculate and identify account balance and activity fluctuations automatically to continuously monitor for risk, ensure the effective and timely execution of critical management review controls, and support agile decision-making.
Simplify, standardize, and automate your financial close in SAP.
Streamline and automate activities in SAP with task scheduling and execution, activity monitoring, and outcome verification.
Maximize working capital and release cash from your balance sheet.
Maximize working capital with the only unified platform for collecting cash, providing credit, and understanding cash flow. Transform your accounts receivable processes with intelligent AR automation that delivers value across your business.
Apply customer payments to invoices automatically.
Transform your order-to-cash cycle and speed up your cash application process by instantly matching and accurately applying customer payments to customer invoices in your ERP.
Create and operate risk polices with dynamic insights.
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.
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.
Resolve customer disputes promptly to collect debt.
Accelerate dispute resolution with automated workflows and maintain customer relationships with operational reporting. Unlock full control and visibility of disputes and provide better insight into how they impact KPIs, such as DSO and aged debt provisions.
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.
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.
Unlock growth capacity with tax-effective intercompany operations.
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.
Automate, optimize, and manage intercompany non-trade transactions.
Ensure consistent regulatory and tax compliance by automating non-trade transactions and invoices while enforcing trading relationships and policies, as well as required taxes and transfer pricing.
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.
Get set up quickly for a streamlined and automated close.
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.
Save time and cost, decrease risk, and elevate the organization.
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.
Adapt to changing consumer preferences with agile accounting.
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.
Energize your accounting team by creating capacity with automation.
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.
Align healthcare accounting teams to revenue-driving activities.
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.
Unlock capacity and strengthen resilience by automating accounting.
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.
Transform the way you work.
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.
In good company.
More than 4,000 companies of all sizes, across all industries, trust BlackLine to help them modernize their financial close, accounts receivable, and intercompany accounting processes.
Join an exclusive community of peers, partners, and BlackLine experts.
BlackLine users around the world gain access to a digital hub of insight, information, and engagement that enables the exchange of ideas and leading practices for peak F&A performance.
Guided, connected, and committed to your success.
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.
Build a foundation for world-class accounting.
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.
Accelerate adoption and drive productivity and performance.
One of the critical success drivers for any software technology is effective user training and adoption. Whether you are deploying for the first time or creating a sustainable education program for maximum value creation, explore how you can take the next steps to upskill your users.
Your success is our success.
From onboarding to financial operations excellence, our customer success management team helps you unlock measurable value. Through workshops, webinars, digital success options, tips and tricks, and more, you will develop leading-practice processes and strategies to propel your organization forward.
Go beyond with end-to-end transformation.
Powerful technology is only part of the story. Successful transformation requires expert guidance from a trusted partner. Explore offerings that unlock new transformation opportunities and make transformation a reality.
World-class support so you can focus on what matters most.
BlackLine provides global product support across geographies, languages, and time zones, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. We are here for you with industry-leading support whenever and wherever you need it.
Connect with peers across Finance & Accounting.
Whether new to BlackLine or a longtime customer, we curate events to guide you along every step of your modern accounting journey.
Hear from F&A thought leaders and customers like you.
Explore our schedule of upcoming webinars to find inspiration, including industry experts, strategic alliance partners, and boundary-pushing customers. And, earn CPE credits while you're at it.
Catch up on the latest finance transformation guidance.
Check out our most recent webinars dedicated to modern accounting. If you recently attended webinar you loved, find it here and share the link with your colleagues.
Dive into digital finance transformation.
Explore the future of accounting over a cup of coffee with our curated collection of white papers and ebooks written to help you consider how you will transform your people, process, and technology.
Stay on top of the latest accounting trends.
BlackLine Magazine provides daily updates on everything from companies that have transformed F&A to new regulations that are coming to disrupt your day, week, and month. Check back often for the latest commentary and guidance.
Brush up on key accounting terms.
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.
Integrate your accounting operations with open APIs.
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.
Companies come to BlackLine because their traditional manual accounting processes are not sustainable. We help them move to modern accounting by unifying their data and processes, automating repetitive work, and driving accountability through visibility.
BlackLine's leadership team is built on experience and expertise. Every executive is committed to ensuring transformational success for every customer.
At BlackLine, we live by these tenets and always put people first. We are committed to fostering an environment where differences are valued and practices are equitable.
BlackLine is committed to doing our part to create a more sustainable and equitable world, from setting high environmental standards in all BlackLine workplaces to supporting employee health and wellbeing, building strong relationships with suppliers from underrepresented communities, protecting customers’ data security and privacy and giving back to the community.
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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.
In addition to accolades for the quality, performance and benefits of our software, BlackLine has been the recipient of many industry awards recognizing the fast growth of the company, outstanding achievements of members of the management team and exceptional customer service.
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Global and regional advisory and consulting firms bring deep finance domain expertise, process transformation leadership, and shared passion for customer value creation to our joint customers. Our consulting partners help guide large enterprise and midsize organizations undergoing digital transformation by maximizing and accelerating value from BlackLine’s solutions.
Guiding Customers to Long-Term Success
BlackLine’s Solution Providers are experienced business software resellers who know and understand the finance and accounting function and the associated challenges that organizations face. They ensure our customers’ success with BlackLine from the initial solution validation process through deployments and long-term customer care and long-term success.
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BlackLine and our ecosystem of software and cloud partners work together to transform our joint customers’ finance and accounting processes. Together, we provide innovative solutions that help F&A teams achieve shorter close cycles and better controls, enabling them to drive better decision-making across the company.
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BlackLine partners with top global Business Process Outsourcers and equips them with solutions to better serve their clients and achieve market-leading automation, efficiencies, and risk control. By outsourcing, businesses can achieve stronger compliance, gain a deeper level of industry knowledge, and grow without unnecessary costs.
Intercompany accounting is the recording of financial transactions between two different entities that are related by the same parent company.
The transactions may occur between the parent and one if its subsidiaries, or between two subsidiaries.
They may also occur between groups, subdivisions, or departments within the same company.
Intercompany accounting is an important step in the business accounting process. It allows the business to record and evaluate all manner of financial activity thoroughly and accurately. For a given business, not all transactions are external. Those that occur within or between entities within the parent company can equally impact its overall financial health as those that involve external, client-customer transactions.
Intercompany accounting allows a business to maintain the same detailed journal entries for intercompany transactions as it would for all other financial activity. The recorded information allows the company to evaluate the full monetary value of its transactions, and to provide accurate financial statements.
Intercompany transactions must be recorded properly because the two entities are not independent, and for this reason, the parent business cannot record the transactions as a profit or loss. A business cannot record a profit or loss by conducting business with itself. Transactions can only affect profit or loss when they involve an independent, outside entity.
Many businesses have divisions, subsidiaries, franchises, or other units that act independently, but are owned by the larger, parent company. For example, 3M—the office supply manufacturer—owns Scotch Tape, Post-It, Bondo, and several other manufacturers of popular office products.
However, not all intercompany scenarios involve large, international businesses. Many are also entirely domestic and operate on a smaller scale. For example, a lawn care company may spin off a smaller start-up to develop and sell a new line of grass seeds. The start-up will act independently but is owned by and receives financing from the parent company.
Any time an exchange of financial value takes place between any of the two entities in these scenarios, the transaction must be accounted for and ultimately reconciled. It cannot be overlooked or disregarded because the two entities are related.
Intercompany reconciliation will look different depending on the business. For example, a large, multi-national corporation with subsidiaries around the globe will have a much different process for reconciling its intercompany transactions than a small, domestic company with one or two subsidiaries.
Intercompany transactions are recorded in different ways depending on the nature of the transaction. For example, if one subsidiary of a company sells inventory to another, the transaction will be recorded as an account receivable entry for the selling subsidiary and as an account payable for the purchasing subsidiary. If a parent company makes a loan to one of its subsidiaries, it will be recorded as an asset for the parent company and as a liability for the subsidiary. In either case, the transactions will be eliminated before the consolidated financial statement is prepared.
Intercompany transactions occur in one of three ways:
Downstream transactions refer to transactions that originate from the parent company and are directed to one of its subsidiaries
An upstream transaction is a financial activity that is directed from the subsidiary to the parent company
Lateral transactions take place between two subsidiaries of the same parent company
In the process of intercompany accounting, it is vital that both parties accurately record the transaction and that they do so in a similar manner, using the same descriptive terms and values. This ensures that the transaction can be correctly recorded, processed, and eliminated by both entities. Because intercompany transactions cannot be reported as a profit, they must be eliminated. That is to say they must cancel out, or equal zero, in the final accounting process. The parent business cannot have an intercompany transaction with a value greater than zero in the closing period statements.
RELATED TERMS
Accounting
Account Reconciliation
Consolidated Financial Statements
Downstream Transactions
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
General Ledger
Intercompany Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)
Intercompany Debt
Intercompany Elimination
Intercompany Invoice
Intercompany Receivables
Intercompany Revenue and Expenses
Intercompany Sales
Intercompany Stock Ownership
Intercompany Transactions
Lateral Transactions
Master Data Management
Related Entities
Subsidiary Companies
Subsidiary Ledger
Upstream Transactions
An intercompany invoice is a document that details a transaction between two units, divisions, or subsidiaries within the same parent company. It will have all the same information that any other invoice would have, including:
The name of the entity or unit providing the good or service
The recipient entity or unit of the good or service
The good or service provided
The date on which it was provided
The quantity or amount that was provided
The value of the resource that was exchanged
Intercompany reconciliation is the verification of transactions that take place between two units or subsidiaries of the same parent company.
Intercompany reconciliation is performed much like other forms of account reconciliation. However, there are some steps that are unique to the process. As account reconciliation ensures the validity and accuracy of business accounting in general, intercompany reconciliation is the process of verifying the records of intercompany accounting, specifically.
Intercompany reconciliation faces a number of challenges because of the nature of the transactions that are being reconciled. These may include poor record keeping, such as invoicing errors and inconsistent account period recording. Exchange rate differences can also be an issue for international companies.
Utilizing standard data parameters greatly increases the efficiency of the intercompany accounting and reconciliation process, by eliminating or reducing the need to search and find data pertaining to intercompany transactions. This process is often referred to as master data management. The term describes the process by which a business takes steps throughout the enterprise to ensure the uniformity, accuracy, and consistency of its data.
Much of a business’s financial activity takes place between and within subsidiaries or divisions of the same parent company. This has become even more commonplace in today’s global economy.
Journal entries of intercompany transactions are an important step in the business accounting process. They allow the business to record and evaluate all manner of financial activity thoroughly and accurately.
An effective intercompany accounting process helps the business avoid double entries in more than one of its subsidiaries or divisions. It allows the company to evaluate the full monetary value of its transactions, to provide accurate financial statements, and to avoid disputes.
Intercompany accounting helps businesses with multiple divisions and subsidiaries prepare accurate consolidated financial statements, to provide a clear and transparent picture of its financial health, and avoid disputes.
Without thorough and accurate intercompany accounting, companies leave themselves vulnerable. Businesses will not be able to properly reconcile transactions that take place between entities or to accurately assess profits and losses. This undermines the ability of the parent company to prepare accurate consolidated financial statements. The role and contribution of each entity to the parent company’s overall performance and financial health cannot be accurately ascertained. Inadequate intercompany accounting can also lead to financial disputes between entities under the same parent company.
Intercompany transactions can artificially inflate profits and liabilities in the business. Intercompany accounting operates on the principle that only transactions with outside entities can create a profit or a liability. Therefore, all intercompany transactions must cancel out to zero in the business accounting records.
For example, if a subsidiary purchases supplies from another, it will record a $1000 transaction in its purchase account. At the same time, the entity that sold the supplies will record the transaction for the same amount in its sales account.
Intercompany reconciliation will make sure that these two transactions are properly recorded in the ledgers for both subsidiaries, and that they ultimately cancel out, or equal zero, and do not appear in the consolidated financial statement for the parent business.
Intercompany transactions can include a number of different kinds of financial activity. Related units can buy and sell goods or services, just like they do with outside customers. They can also exchange other resources, such as fees, inventory, cash, capital, dividends, raw materials, parts, staff, and loans. Any of these types of transactions require documentation.
Request a demo with BlackLine and see how you can centralize and streamline end-to-end intercompany accounting.