Top 3 Intercompany Hurdles - Straight from the Track

It’s time to rein in risk and automate accuracy when it comes to intercompany operations.

BlackLine takes a customer-centric approach. We regularly engage with our customers, learn from them, and collaborate to solve their real-world problems. We recently surveyed some current clients* to dig into the question of: What does the intercompany process feel like from the user’s perspective?

To better understand what F&A professionals truly encounter in the intercompany space, we leveraged these customer survey responses to surface insights directly from those who live and breathe these processes every day. Three key findings emerged: Pain Points in Intercompany, the need for workflows, and critical solution capabilities.

Ready. Set? Let’s go.

_{*not using BL IC solutions}

Intercompany accounting is complex, fragmented, and prone to delays – before BlackLine.
Based on recent survey results, the biggest bottlenecks our customers experienced prior to deploying BlackLine solutions came from the manual processes that companies used to engage in. Handoffs of data from team to team broke down easily, making it hard to keep the pace.
We heard consistently about the frustration of chasing down data across disparate systems, dealing with frequent mismatches, and managing reconciliation workarounds that consume valuable time and resources. These pain points didn’t just create inefficiencies – they introduced risk and eroded confidence in financial accuracy.

As we analyzed our results, some clear patterns emerged. Despite differences in industry, size,
or structure, organizations face the same core challenges when it comes to intercompany.
These challenges highlight the friction, inefficiencies, and risks that slow down and complicate the intercompany process for organizations that don’t have the right solutions and processes in place.

Intercompany isn’t confined to one team or department – it spans multiple stakeholders, regions, and systems.

Every department plays a crucial role in the intercompany race, and the successful handoff of data, solid workflows, and real-time visibility are critical to ensure your company’s long-term success.
Through the survey, we explored how work gets done across organizations, identifying gaps in communication, a lack of process ownership, and varying levels of automation. These workflow challenges often lead to inconsistent practices and difficulty enforcing standardization at scale.

With the increased number of systems and tools used to manage intercompany data, we heard the workflow needs loud and clear: having increased visibility and controls over rules is crucial in maintaining smooth-running intercompany processes.

When it comes to technology, users aren’t just looking for tools – they’re looking for solutions that address their realities. With time of the essence to win the race and many organizations struggling with resources, having solutions that speed up processes while maintaining quality is key.

Our research highlighted a demand for flexibility, visibility, and control. F&A professionals want platforms that adapt to their operating models, offer real-time insights, and reduce manual effort without sacrificing accuracy or compliance. Plus, a solution must deliver the capabilities it promised so ROI, cost-effectiveness, and value can be demonstrated to leadership and stakeholders year after year.

Frankly, we’re not surprised at any of this. We’ve been hearing about these bottlenecks and challenges for years.

It’s why we created BlackLine Intercompany Solutions.

Finance professionals have high expectations of what an intercompany solution should do – and rightfully so! BlackLine Intercompany solutions are part of the only end-to-end holistic platform built to handle intercompany while scaling with your business needs, ensuring lasting value and future-ready financials for the Office of the CFO.

Create a winning race plan for intercompany with our solutions:

Create
Synchronize transactions across multiple ERPs, streamline processes with automated transactions, and gain visibility into purchase orders, sales orders, and invoices.

Balance & Resolve
Build trust in your intercompany balancing and issue resolution processes with greater standardization and automation.

Net & Settle
Eliminate settlement delays, gain control of FX, and ensure cash precision. Give real-time status updates, enabling collaboration between departments.