Despite modernizing customer transactions with an online banking portal, accountants at Haven Savings Bank still relied on an outdated—and time-consuming—manual close process.

“When I first started with the bank, daily reconciliations weren’t even being done in Excel. Accountants were making notes on statements when transactions cleared,” says Thomas Buthorn, CPA, VP, and controller at Haven Savings Bank.

“We’d print reports from our accounting system and basically go back and forth, marking off what matched. Each reconciliation took 45 minutes. At the end of the month, we’d do an Excel reconciliation as the final.” 

Federal Home Loan Bank reconciliations were particularly difficult. “Performing Federal Home Loan Bank reconciliations were highly manual and took nearly an hour each day to complete,” says Buthorn.

The bank’s reliance on notes and spreadsheets also hampered visibility and coordination between groups. “Certain GLs were even more difficult. For example, if a specific GL was for a loan for the loan group, we spent a lot of time contacting everyone trying to figure out what should or shouldn’t be in there.”

Haven Savings Bank needed a new close solution, one that would increase visibility, standardization, and automation while freeing staff for more meaningful and value-added work. “I knew how long everything took and some of the pains staff went through to reconcile accounts,” says Buthorn. “That’s what inspired me to search for a new solution.”

After researching several vendors, Buthorn opted to do a demo with BlackLine. “Originally, we just wanted to move away from our manual close process and streamline reconciliations. But during the demo, we learned about all the other things BlackLine can do. We saw how helpful it would be for transaction matching, tasks, and variance analysis as well.”

Haven’s controller (now CFO) immediately saw the value in BlackLine. “Our controller knew what we were going through. He understood how difficult it was and how we lacked visibility,” says Buthorn. “We then had to convince our president that it was a valuable investment. We showed him how BlackLine would increase our productivity and efficiency, especially because we might not have to replace someone who was retiring. He recognized the potential for cost savings.” 

Buthorn opted to rely on a consultant to help the team with implementing and rolling out BlackLine. “We had a really good experience. Our consultant set weekly goals and updates. We had a project plan that showed who was responsible for which tasks. It helped keep us on track.”

The consultant also trained staff on how to use Account Reconciliations. “Staff were trained over two sessions. After that, I was able to take over the training,” says Buthorn. “Staff were really receptive. They knew we needed a better solution, and after training, everyone was on board.”