StackPath is one of the first edge computing providers and the only provider offering a full complement of computing products at edge locations. The company recently earned a designation from Baird as “one of the leading, disruptive privately-held software providers” in the world.

Yet, despite being at the forefront of the industry, StackPath still executed a primarily manual close process.

“Our processes were, like those of a lot of startups, very manual,” says Liana Clarke, VP Controller, StackPath. “We used a lot of Excel spreadsheets.”

This reliance on spreadsheets hampered efficiency and visibility as the company expanded. “We grew through both acquisitions and natural client-based growth. We have a large number of separate legal entities that we consolidate on the monthly basis,” says Clarke.

“We needed one tool to consolidate our reconciliations, in addition to helping us with the monthly close and centralization of all our accounting tasks. Our goal was to both create a single source of data and to move away from manual work by increasing automation.”

Clarke and her team evaluated several different solution providers, and BlackLine was selected for several key reasons.

“Few of us in Accounting Team used BlackLine at our previous companies, but we still wanted to make sure it was the right tool for StackPath. When we compared BlackLine against other tools, it was obvious that not only was BlackLine easier to use, but it was an established company with a strong support system.”

BlackLine’s flexibility was also a factor: StackPath can add solutions, such as Variance Analysis or Journal Entry, as needed. “BlackLine has the capabilities to support us in our growth. Other solutions were either more limited or didn’t offer additional capabilities that we could add later.”

StackPath implemented BlackLine’s Modern Accounting Playbook for Account Reconciliations, and subsequently Transaction Matching for high-volume bank reconciliations. Implementation was “very quick and smooth,” says Clarke. “We were able to implement Account Reconciliations within one month.”

“Our consultant from BlackLine supported us all the way. She walked us through the implementation template that we needed to fill out. She was available for questions, answer sessions, and meetings upon request. We were also able to bring her on site, pre-COVID, at the time of the actual data upload.”