Saved time. BlackLine transformed Cinemark’s entire approach to reconciliations. “We started with 1,800 domestic accounts. We’ve since reduced that to 900 and 40% of those are auto reconciled,” says Hill. “We’ve seen significant time savings.”

“[With BlackLine] we probably saved a full day of pushing paper around during the close process—maybe more than that,” adds Bedard. “When you eliminate that wasted time, it helps you move tasks to earlier in your close and shorten your close process.”

Reduced risk. Manual close processes are notoriously difficult to standardize across multiple accounting units. Today, with BlackLine Account Reconciliations, Cinemark’s processes and formats are consistent across 10 corporate offices.

“We now have a formal, global account reconciliations policy that all countries follow,” says Hill. “We also have clear segregation of duties and delineation of low- and high-risk accounts helping to mitigate risk and drive accountability.”

Increased visibility. Instead of searching through physical folders and spreadsheets, Cinemark accounting staff can now access reconciliations and key documentation within BlackLine, at any time, from anywhere. Close tasks are also visible, enabling accounting leaders to track and manage close progress and balance workloads for maximum efficiency.

“With BlackLine, we can see where we are at any point during the close,” says Bedard. “BlackLine helps us gauge what is still outstanding.”

Freed staff for value-added work. BlackLine’s automation capabilities enable staff to focus on more strategic and interesting work, instead of repetitive manual tasks. “With BlackLine, we have more time to work on continuous improvement initiatives that are in the pipeline,” says Hill.

Enabled business continuity. Hill credits Cinemark’s earlier adoption of BlackLine with a seamless transition to remote work during the pandemic.

“Like other companies, Cinemark was forced to close our offices and work remotely. Thanks to implementation of BlackLine, we were able to get our jobs done and continue with all of our work processes. I can't even imagine how we would have functioned during the pandemic without BlackLine.”

Cinemark recently implemented BlackLine Transaction Matching to streamline matching daily theater deposits and change orders. “We’re looking at expanding our use of Transaction Matching to credit cards, as well as for our alcohol activity, which requires a complex three-way match,” says Hill.

The company continues to look for additional ways to modernize their close process. “This is just the beginning of our transformation,” says Hill. “There are so many things that we’d like to do with BlackLine. We keep coming up with other ideas on what we can automate and how we can use the tool in the future.”