Optimizing Record-to-Report: Real-World Results from Gonzaga and Pavilion Payments

Gonzaga University - recognized as a Top 100 National University by U.S. News and World Report, 2025 - successfully reduced inefficiencies and strengthened quality controls by centralizing record-to-report activities through BlackLine.

Similarly, Pavilion Payments, a leader in omnichannel payment solutions for the gaming industry, gained near real-time financial data for stakeholders, improved collaboration with auditors, and saved time through automation.

By transforming traditional, fragmented R2R processes with intelligent automation, finance teams can unlock efficiencies, improve accuracy, and mitigate risks.

These outcomes demonstrate the power of intelligent automation in optimizing the R2R process, ensuring that financial operations are more efficient, accurate, and streamlined.

Enhancing your record-to-report (R2R) process is more critical in 2025 than ever before.

Organizations are under pressure to streamline their financial operations and achieve faster, more accurate insights. With data silos, manual processes, and increasing compliance demands, the need for a more efficient R2R process has never been greater.

By transforming traditional, fragmented R2R processes with intelligent automation, finance teams can unlock efficiencies, improve accuracy, and mitigate risks.

The impact of this transformation can be seen through real-world examples from Gonzaga University and Pavilion Payments.

The R2R process serves as the backbone of financial reporting. It encompasses everything from journal entries to consolidation, all the way through to final reporting.

Given the complexity of today’s financial ecosystem, R2R processes are often burdened with data silos, manual reconciliation, and compliance risks.

These challenges can result in inefficiencies, delayed insights, and errors, which, in turn, hinder an organization’s ability to make timely, informed decisions. As organizations grow, the need for a more streamlined and automated R2R process becomes more urgent.

• Data Silos: Financial data often resides in disparate systems, creating inefficiencies and slowing down the reporting process.

• Manual Processes: Many organizations rely on spreadsheets and manual processes for reconciliation, consolidation, and reporting, increasing the risk of errors and compliance issues.

• Compliance Risks: Without a unified system, ensuring compliance with regulations while maintaining data accuracy can be a significant challenge.

• Delays in Reporting: Manual consolidation and reporting activities often lead to delays, which can be detrimental in a fast-paced business environment.

BlackLine offers a comprehensive, end-to-end solution for optimizing the entire R2R cycle.

From automating journal entries to streamlining the consolidation and reporting stages, BlackLine helps organizations improve their financial close and reporting operations.

But how do these solutions translate into real-world results? Let’s look closer at how Gonzaga University and Pavilion Payments have successfully implemented BlackLine to optimize their R2R processes.

Gonzaga University has been working to modernize its accounting operations since 2017. Initially, the focus was on addressing manual account reconciliations.

However, as their financial operations evolved, Gonzaga sought to extend this automation to downstream consolidation and reporting activities, which were still largely spreadsheet-dependent.

With BlackLine’s Financial Reporting Analytics, Gonzaga could eliminate manual consolidation work and centralize their record-to-report activities. This solution enabled them to:

• Reduce inefficiencies by unifying record-to-report processes.

• Improve visibility and timeliness by providing on-demand access to financial data, reducing the reliance on emailed spreadsheets.

• Strengthen quality and controls by automating the review process and ensuring data integrity.

The results were significant: Gonzaga reduced the hours spent on manual work each month, gained better visibility into its financial data, and improved the speed and accuracy of its reporting process.

Moreover, they were able to prepare for future advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) with BlackLine’s continuous product enhancements.

Pavilion Payments, a leader in omnichannel payment solutions for the gaming industry, faced similar challenges with their manual R2R processes.

Their accounting team used spreadsheets to download and consolidate trial balances, making it difficult to perform meaningful variance analysis and gain real-time insights into their financial performance.

After implementing BlackLine’s Financial Reporting Analytics, Pavilion Payments transformed their R2R process by:

• Enabling deep financial analysis with real-time insights into their financial data.

• Increasing visibility across the entire R2R process, allowing the team to track their progress and quickly identify errors.

• Reducing audit stress by providing more robust and detailed financial statements that gave auditors greater confidence.

The benefits were clear: Pavilion Payments gained the ability to present near real-time financial data to stakeholders, improved collaboration with auditors, and saved time through automation.

In just five days, Pavilion Payments implemented BlackLine’s solution, showing the speed and efficiency of BlackLine’s financial close automation capabilities.

Manual processes not only slow down the close but also introduce errors and inefficiencies. By integrating and automating the entire R2R process, organizations can unlock real-time insights, reduce risks, and streamline workflows.

BlackLine’s end-to-end R2R solutions provide organizations with the tools to modernize their financial operations and achieve greater accuracy, efficiency, and control.

By connecting disparate systems, automating workflows, and providing real-time insights, BlackLine empowers finance teams to work more efficiently and make more informed decisions.

Ready to optimize your R2R process? Learn how BlackLine can help you achieve end-to-end R2R transformation with a comprehensive solution that integrates, automates, and optimizes financial operations.