Spotlight On:
Growth-ready financial close
If you're reading this, chances are you're already convinced of one thing: that optimizing the financial close process is crucial to gain and maintain your competitive advantage.
It can be hard to envision what this looks like in practice.
At BlackLine, we empower finance and accounting leaders to navigate the challenges of modern-day demands on teams involved with the close. Our aim? To help you accelerate the close, unleash productivity, and boost your competitive advantage.
We do that by enabling
R2R activities that deliver:
Accuracy—Reliable and error-free data that feeds downstream processes through financial review and reporting.
Efficiency—Processes that run smoothly without bottlenecks and eliminate silos, decrease manual work, and supercharge financial review.
Intelligence—Advanced analytics and AI that transform data into a strategic asset, enabling F&A to provide proactive insights and analysis.
In this lookbook you can explore the real-life success stories of the people and companies who have partnered with us.
Want to explore how BlackLine can help you turn your record-to-report processes into an enabler of profitable growth?
Saving The Coca-Cola Company $600,000 a year.
Products used:
“When I think about BlackLine, seamless, transparent, greater visibility, and increased control are all words that come to mind.”
Eamon Matthews
Business Process Lead, Accounting & Reporting,
The Coca-Cola Company
The Global Finance Operations (GFO) division of The Coca-Cola Company manages more than 50,000 GL accounts.
But a lack of standardization was causing major headaches.
“For reconciliations, each region was allowed to determine what type of supporting documentation and technology they would use and the frequency of reconciliations, who was involved, and training materials.”
Eammon and The Coca-Cola Company had a vision of something more connected.
Something that would not only remove inefficiencies (they were spending over 14,000 hours a month on reconciliations alone), but also allow the company to charge towards its growth goals, too.
The Coca-Cola Company had a plan designed to double revenue within the decade. For the GFO, supporting that plan meant ensuring all its processes—including balance sheet reconciliations—were standardized, global, accessible, and easy to use.
Eamonn and the company needed a cloud-based, globally accessible reconciliation solution that offered auto-certification, administration rules and auto alerts, enhanced reporting and analytics, and real-time dashboards.
The search led them to BlackLine…and a painless implementation process.
“It shows how good the implementation team was that we didn't even need consultants to help decipher what exactly we were supposed to be doing. BlackLine's reporting functionality has made critical data very transparent and accessible,” says Eamonn.
The Results
Value-added reporting wins
The company was able to reduce the number of FTEs working on reconciliations from 800 to 350—a 56% reduction This means managers and frontline staff now spend a lot less time on routine work and more time on value-added reporting.
Game-changing efficiency
The company is now generating $600,000 in annual savings across their reconciliation processes.
Global visibility across entities
Eammon is now able to look at all 272 legal entities in one dashboard and make informed decisions—a far cry from having to talk to 15-20 GL managers to get the information the needed.
Thirsty for more?
Does Eamonn’s story grab your interest with Coca-Cola’s significant time and money savings?
Auto reconciling 99.9% of Domino’s transactions.
Products used:
“Our accounting organization innovates to find the best way to deliver quality results to our stakeholders. And BlackLine was the best partner to not just deliver the numbers, but to deliver confidence.”
Sarah Pflug
Senior Product Manager, Payment Strategy
Domino's
Domino’s processes tens of millions of transactions every month, and in the past, teams spent a lot of time and effort in spreadsheets.
Sarah knew they should be spending more time investigating exceptions because that's where the real insight comes from. Plus, she wanted the opportunity to provide better support and advice for the rest of the organization. But because of the sheer volume of transactions and the team’s manual processes, they simply didn’t have time.
As part of a review of their overall electronic payments, Domino’s realized there was a significant opportunity to improve their transaction matching process.
“When we saw the capabilities that BlackLine had to offer, we found that it was the most robust, and that's why we chose to expand into transaction matching.”
Once BlackLine Transaction Matching was fully implemented, Domino’s was able to automatically match 99.9% of their 40 million transactions every month.
BlackLine afforded Sarah the ability to change the type of work she and her team does. These days, she’s able to proactively look at what's going on with the numbers and provide operations teams with quick analysis and support of what’s happening. It’s allowed her to be a much better partner for the rest of the organization.
The Results
Incredible auto-match rates
With a 99.9% auto-match rate, the Domino’s teams can spend more time on exceptions, analysis, and stakeholder support.
Reduction of manual tasks
With BlackLine Transaction Matching, the teams spend less time in cumbersome and error-prone spreadsheets.
Improved partnership
The payments team can now provide quick analysis and support and be overall better partners for the rest of the organization.
Smell that success!
Are you tempted by Sarah’s account of how Domino’s reconciled 99.9% of its transactions?
Ready to see how BlackLine can help?
Reporting on Red Wing Shoes’ award-winning 379% ROI.
Products used:
“Red Wing Shoes is saving 856 hours/year which allows us to better support the business, our vendors, and our customers.”
Vickie Frentz
Sr. Financial Systems Analyst
Red Wing Shoes
Nucleus Research’s annual ROI awards recognize end-user organizations whose deployments of specific IT solutions have achieved exceptional financial and business results.
By partnering with BlackLine, Red Wing Shoes became the 2020 winner of the award.
“What I like about BlackLine is that it creates an opportunity to drive innovation for the team. We can be more analytical and provide value to our business partners. Ultimately, we get better financial insight to support better business decisions,” notes Holly Mudgett, Director, Corporate Accounting & Business Systems, Red Wing Shoes.
Red Wing Shoes currently distributes its products to over 100 countries and over 4,000 US retail locations, including company-owned, dealer-owned, and branded stores.
But the company was using Excel spreadsheets and email to manage its day-to-day accounting activities.
This led to a lack of standardization and controls. And as Red Wing grew, its financial processes became increasingly inefficient and laborious.
Red Wing Shoes began searching for a dedicated financial close and consolidation (FCC) software solution in 2017.
The non-negotiables were:
- Organizational visibility and consolidation of all its financial processes and data into a single location.
- Standardization and controls over workflows.
- A seamless user interface and intuitive guided workflows to reduce labor and time input.
After assessing the market, they found a solution that could meet these needs— BlackLine.
BlackLine’s ability to create account and cost center combination groupings allowed Red Wing to cut the number of monthly account reconciliations they needed to perform by over 7,000.
The bottom line: A huge $1.2 million in annual savings through new productivity, efficiency, and visibility.
The Results
Award-winning ROI
Red Wing has achieved an ROI of 379% a year, a 1:3.2 cost/benefit ratio, and began realizing payback of BlackLine in just 4.8 months.
Huge time savings
With BlackLine, Red Wing has built standardized workflows to facilitate and automate its financial processes. Altogether, the guided workflows save staff, managers, and directors a total of 1,500 hours every year—which they have reallocated to other value-added tasks.
Improved organizational visibility
By consolidating its financial information, the company is saving 3,500 hours each month through account reconciliation automation.
Ready to fill your boots with ROI?
Were you impressed by Vickie’s story of saving hundreds of hours and achieving 379% ROI?
Interested in learning how BlackLine can help?
Reducing intercompany discrepancies at Kraft Heinz by 30x
Products used:
“We really needed a much better solution to bring those millions of dollars in discrepancies down to a manageable number.”
Paul Dubbelman
Finance Lead, Global Business Services
Kraft Heinz
In 2015, H.J. Heinz Company and Kraft Foods Group merged, adding a lot of complexity for the newly combined accounting and finance function.
Post merger, the company had to navigate $20-30 million in intercompany discrepancies between payables and receivables across multiple entities.
The process of reconciling these intercompany transactions was “uncoordinated, uncontrolled, extremely manual, and very complex,” according to Paul Dubbelman, Finance Lead, Global Business Services, at Kraft Heinz. He knew the company “needed a much better solution to bring those millions of dollars in discrepancies down to a manageable number.”
With BlackLine Intercompany solutions put in place, Kraft Heinz has cut intercompany discrepancies in non-product invoices ranging from $20 million to $30 million a month.
BlackLine gave Paul and his team increased visibility across non-product transactions so personnel can quickly identify, examine, and resolve exceptions. BlackLine’s support was instrumental in rearchitecting processes and solving unique challenges. The results? Increased confidence in financial data while simultaneously freeing staff to focus on value-added work.
The Results
Increased the efficiency of reconciliations
Automated manual processes
Achieved better than 60% auto-certification
Integrated BlackLine with ERP system
Bring the flavor!
Did Paul’s story whet your appetite to improve your intercompany operations?
Ready to see how BlackLine can help?
Optimizing Gonzaga University’s Consolidation and Reporting Activities
“With BlackLine financial reporting, we no longer do manual work in Excel. Everything is automated and in one place.”
Michelle Soss
Associate Controller,
Gonzaga University
Gonzaga University has been modernizing its accounting operations with BlackLine since 2017.
Pleased with their progress, the Gonzaga team shifted its focus to downstream consolidation and reporting activities that were still highly manual and spreadsheet-dependent.
Michelle Soss, Associate Controller, noted, “When we saw the consolidation capabilities of [BlackLine’s] Financial Reporting Analytics, we knew it made sense to add the solution.” With underlying accounting data already in BlackLine, Gonzaga could automate and centralize consolidation and reporting activities using the purpose-built capabilities of the Financial Reporting Analytics product.
With BlackLine Financial Reporting Analytics, Gonzaga has realized the value of having a centralized platform to execute its record-to-report activities. Notably, management now has on-demand access to timely consolidated financial data in Financial Reporting Analytics—one month faster than previously possible and without emailed spreadsheet reports.
“It is exciting to see what the BlackLine developers are working on with GenAI solutions,” Soss says. “They listen to our input and incorporate it into their product. Having these solutions will help us reduce manual work and focus more time on providing better quality work.”
With BlackLine, Michelle and her team are saving hours of manual work each month, gaining better visibility, and making faster and more informed decisions. In addition, Gonzaga is excited about AI advancements from BlackLine that will build on successes with even greater efficiency.
The Results
Unified record-to-report
Eliminated hours of manual work each month
Streamlined external audits
Minimized financial and operational risk
We’re feeling smarter—are you?
Did Michelle’s story pique your interest in improving your consolidation and reporting activities?
Ready to see how BlackLine can help?
It's your turn.
If you're ready to take the next steps and implement changes that BlackLine can help with at your organization, schedule your free demo today, or check out other resources.