Mastering Journal Entry Management with BlackLine

⇨ CFOs and other finance leaders are searching for new solutions to reduce overhead and improve efficiency.

⇨ Roughly half of all financial close tasks are related to journals. As many finance professionals know, there is significant room for improvement in the journal entry process.

⇨ Automated journal entry solutions can reduce risk and increase efficiency in the close process.

With financial conditions constantly in flux, CFOs and other finance leaders are searching for new solutions to reduce overhead and improve efficiency. AI and automation are emerging as top candidates to improve workflows and reduce the risk of error for finance teams.

SAPinsider’s recent AI and Automation in Finance Benchmark Report found that 64% of SAP finance teams who are planning to leverage AI and automation will do so in the hopes of increasing financial close efficiency, the highest share of any response.

Exploring Journal Entry Issues with BlackLine

When it comes to improving the efficiency of the financial close, journal entries are the perfect place to start. Roughly half of all financial close tasks are related to journals. As many finance professionals know, there is significant room for improvement in the journal entry process.

Outdated manual processes operating through email or Excel can lead to bottlenecks and errors. Also, when documents are decentralized, companies may struggle to find the information they need during audits.

To help companies overcome some of these obstacles, BlackLine recently hosted a webinar on streamlining financial operations for journal entries. In the webinar, BlackLine’s Principal Value Architect Andrew Stutzman highlighted that some organization rely solely on their ERP, an Excel upload tool, or a workflow solution by themselves.

While these solutions can address some needs, they often lack critical functions like streamlined audit testing, automated journal entries, and standardized templates. Users need solutions that cover the end-to-end journal entry process.

Mastering Journal Entry

To infuse the journal entry process with standardization and audit readiness, BlackLine offers its own Journal Entry solution. BlackLine is an SAP Solution Extension Partner, so its offerings integrate seamlessly with SAP to streamline the entire process. This also allows for a more centralized financial close process, giving users a single source of truth to work from. This also allows users to collaborate better and prepare for audits.

BlackLine’s Journal Entry tool gives companies the ability to infuse automation into the creation, validation, review, and posting of journal entries. This not only frees up finance team members to work on other tasks that add value to their organization, but also reduces the risk of manual errors.

BlackLine also recently introduced its Journals Risk Analyser capability. The tool uses generative AI to identify trends, detect anomalies, and ensure audit compliance. Users can also access dashboards to review metrics and leverage end-to-end visibility across finance functions.