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Finance and accounting teams are constantly looking for ways to streamline processes and increase efficiency to add more value to their operations. A case study of two companies using the BlackLine platform to improve.
In today’s competitive and Covid-19 environment, many traditional finance processes and workflows must evolve to function effectively. In the face of these challenges, finance and accounting teams are increasingly using technology. Tools and platforms like BlackLine are being introduced to simplify workflows and significantly increase productivity in the remote work world.
While some challenges and factors may vary significantly between organizations, there are others that remain surprisingly consistent. Even though they work in different industries, finance professionals find that they share the same challenges and adopt similar strategies to overcome them.
IFM investors
Linda Lee, corporate accounting manager at finance company IFM Investors, says her firm’s journey with BlackLine (a cloud-based software solution for the financial close process) and Tridant (a technology consultancy that implements BlackLine’s solution) began about twelve months ago. At the time, IFM Investors was looking for a tool that could help improve financial processes.
“The business was looking for a tool to help with reconciliation and put better controls in place,” he says. “As we operate in multiple countries and deal with multiple currencies, managing business change is increasingly challenging.”
After researching the options in the market, the decision was made to deploy BlackLine, however Lee says it’s always important to take some key steps before you start. “Before you approach a tool like BlackLine, you need to understand your account and sub-account structures in detail,” he says. “You have to know how you want to manage this structure on an ongoing basis.”
Lee says it’s also important to be realistic about what you’re trying to achieve and not make too many changes too quickly. This can result in user frustration and will not allow the business to enjoy all the expected benefits.
Once BlackLine was in place, the IFM Investors finance team quickly saw a number of benefits. Workflows were streamlined and many manual processes were either eliminated or automated.
“It has improved our ability to address items within reconciliation,” he says. “BlackLine highlights where you have deviations and brings it to the fore. The finance team then sees and executes the items instead of having to chase them.” Lee says the firm’s external auditors have also embraced the change. When it comes to getting funding data, they are now able to serve themselves rather than having to ask all the time.
“We also enjoy the Teams features,” he says. “People can easily see what others in the finance team are doing and help when needed. It became more of a group process.’
Looking ahead, Lee says he will focus on underpinning a number of projects and making sure businesses make the most of all the features Blackline has to offer.
Spirit of Tasmania
Anthea White, head of the Business Improvements Project at the shipping company Spirit of Tasmania, says that although she had known about BlackLine for some time, it took her a while to fully understand all the value it could bring.
“The catalyst for us was the risks associated with errors that can occur in Excel spreadsheets,” he says. “We had one master spreadsheet covering over 90 balance sheet reconciliations and there were just too many ways things could go wrong.
After completing the implementation of BlackLine with Tridant in March of this year, White says it quickly became clear that it was the right move. With the pandemic requiring employees to work from home, BlackLine was able to provide reliable remote access to essential functions such as invoice management and account reconciliation.
“We’ve also enjoyed time savings from improving functionality and eliminating a number of manual processes,” he says. “BlackLine’s announcements and workflows are great.”
Like Lee, White says her external auditors also like the platform and have found it very easy to adopt. This has taken additional workload off the finance team and audits will be completed much faster. “We also now have a much better overview of what has been completed and what still needs to be worked on,” he says.
Commenting on both case studies, Claudia Pirko, ANZ Regional Vice President at BlackLine, said: “We look forward to continuing our collaboration with IFM Investors and Spirit of Tasmania to help ensure they get maximum value from the platform.”
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