Accounting automation software leader BlackLine offers cloud-based solutions for SAP software that enable fast time-to-value for businesses moving to SAP S/4HANA Cloud.
BlackLine, Inc. (Nasdaq: BL) has recently announced that its market-leading cloud solutions for financial close complement the RISE with SAP offering, building on the company’s success providing accounting automation solutions to hundreds of businesses using SAP (NYSE: SAP) technology, including SAP S/4HANA Cloud. The BlackLine solutions, offered as SAP Solution Extensions, align with the value proposition of RISE with SAP to help customers accelerate their digital transformations to become intelligent enterprises.
BlackLine’s cloud-based solutions are offered by SAP as the SAP Account Substantiation and Automation application by BlackLine; the premier edition of SAP Account Substantiation and Automation by BlackLine; and the SAP Intercompany Financial Hub application by BlackLine, and they complement functionality in SAP S/4HANA Cloud. With payback periods averaging less than one year and ROI of 2.77x for every dollar invested (according to a recent Nucleus Research study), BlackLine can help businesses using SAP solutions to automate key financial processes, enhance internal controls and free up resources to support digital transformation – enabling quicker time-to-value and reduced risk for SAP S/4HANA Cloud implementations.
BlackLine helps businesses streamline the financial close and other critical accounting processes by providing automated balance-sheet substantiation and intercompany governance functionality within a controlled, end-to-end solution.
Martin Naraschewski, Senior Vice President, Global Head of Line of Business Finance for SAP, remarked:
“SAP offers solution extensions from BlackLine that complement RISE with SAP and help bring added value to customers. We look forward to our continued partnership with BlackLine to help enable customers on their journey towards digital transformation.”
Meanwhile, Mel Zeledon, Senior Vice President of Channels and Alliances at BlackLine, stated:
“Any digital transformation journey starts with process transformation. With BlackLine solutions in their cloud portfolio as they move to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, businesses can achieve financial close process transformation – aligning with the value proposition of RISE with SAP and enabling the office of the CFO to lead and drive transformation.”
BlackLine’s Accounting Automation Solutions Align with RISE with SAP
Many of the world’s leading companies have leveraged BlackLine as an enabler on their journeys to implementing SAP S/4HANA, and this will also likely continue as many more move to SAP S/4HANA Cloud. Here’s what some are saying:
Doug Tramp, director of finance systems and operational change at Zurich North America, said:
“It only took us two years to implement SAP S/4HANA across 170 entities. That’s pretty rapid. BlackLine definitely made the project better and more manageable and efficient, helping us improve our controls, not just for reconciliations but for the whole close management process. And it served as a source of confidence and continuity during a period of change.”
On the other hand, John Zimmerman, director of financial data systems at The Hershey Company, stated:
“As part of the global transition to SAP S/4HANA, Hershey needed a trusted SAP partner that could help automate an efficient mass global close. We were looking for process efficiency around balance sheet control, preparation and reconciliation. Hershey decided to implement five BlackLine products in a staged approach. We also worked with BlackLine to establish connectors between SAP and BlackLine. All interconnect seamlessly with each other and SAP S/4HANA.”
Lisa Bird, lead specialist for internal financial control at pan-African financial services company Liberty Group, also remarked:
“BlackLine was a key part of preparing for our transition to SAP S/4HANA. We needed to improve the efficiency, accountability and control of the balance-sheet account substantiating process and reporting across the Liberty Group finance function. We also wanted to ensure transparency, better governance and control across the entire record-to-report process. We met our six-week BlackLine implementation deadline. With BlackLine’s solutions, we are assured that all reconciled accounts are automatically coming into BlackLine, and we can assign them in real time. Using BlackLine alongside SAP, we’ve taken a significant step toward automation and modernization.”
Though hundreds of companies currently run BlackLine solutions alongside SAP technology, the solutions are ERP agnostic and integrate with more than 30 different leading source systems – an added benefit for businesses using SAP solutions with multiple ERP systems.
SAP also recently honoured the accounting automation software leader with the 2021 SAP Pinnacle Award for Partner of the Year in the Solution Extensions category, recognising BlackLine for its “world-class solution extensions.” As a long-standing SAP platinum partner, BlackLine was one of only 21 partners that received an SAP Pinnacle Award from among more than 20,000 SAP partners worldwide.
About BlackLine
Companies come to BlackLine (Nasdaq: BL) because their traditional manual accounting processes are not sustainable. BlackLine’s cloud-based solutions and market-leading customer service help companies move to modern accounting by unifying their data and processes, automating repetitive work, and driving accountability through visibility. BlackLine also provides solutions to manage and automate financial close, accounts receivable and intercompany accounting processes, helping large enterprises and midsize companies across all industries do accounting work better, faster and with more control.
Nearly 3,500 customers trust BlackLine to help them close faster with complete and accurate results. The company is the pioneer of the cloud financial close market and recognized as the leader by customers at leading end-user review sites including Gartner Peer Insights, G2 and TrustRadius. Based in Los Angeles, BlackLine also has regional headquarters in London, Singapore and Sydney. For more information, please visit blackline.com.
