Optimize Financial Management With the BlackLine Variance Analysis Tool

In today’s dynamic business landscape, organizations face the challenge of analyzing and managing financial variances effectively. BlackLine’s Variance Analysis tool offers a powerful solution that enables businesses to gain valuable insights into financial performance, make informed decisions, and enhance operational efficiency.

Variance analysis plays a crucial role in effective financial management by enabling organizations to gain a deeper understanding of financial performance. Variance analysis helps you assess profitability, identify areas of improvement, and align strategies with financial goals. Moreover, it helps your organization enhance decision-making processes by providing insights into cost drivers, revenue fluctuations, and other key factors influencing your financial outcomes.

How BlackLine’s Tool Works

BlackLine Variance Analysis is a robust tool that enables organizations to analyze and understand deviations between planned and actual financial results. By providing a comprehensive view of variances, the tool empowers financial professionals to evaluate performance, identify trends, and implement corrective actions.

The tool encompasses various types of variances, including revenue, expenses, production, and budget. Revenue variances analyze discrepancies between actual and expected revenue, while expense variances assess differences between expected and actual expenses. For manufacturing organizations, production variances focus on analyzing variations in production costs. Finally, budget variances evaluate deviations from planned budgets.

Benefits of Variance Analysis

Effective variance analysis offers numerous benefits to organizations:

  • Enhanced financial performance evaluation: Variance analysis enables organizations to evaluate financial performance more accurately and comprehensively. By analyzing variances, businesses can identify key drivers of performance and gain insights into the factors influencing positive or negative outcomes. This facilitates effective performance evaluation and aids in making data-driven decisions.
  • Improved decision-making processes: By providing a deeper understanding of financial variances, variance analysis equips organizations with better information for making informed decisions. Financial professionals can identify cost-saving opportunities, optimize resource allocation, and prioritize initiatives that drive growth and profitability.
  • Increased operational efficiency: Optimizing variance analysis allows organizations to streamline financial processes and improve operational efficiency. By identifying inefficiencies, bottlenecks, and areas of waste, businesses can implement process improvements and cost-saving measures. This leads to greater operational effectiveness and resource optimization.
  • Better risk management and mitigation: Variance analysis helps organizations identify and mitigate financial risks. By monitoring variances and analyzing their root causes, businesses can identify potential areas of vulnerability and take preventive measures. This strengthens risk management practices and enhances overall financial control.

Six Strategies for Optimizing Variance Analysis

To maximize the benefits of variance analysis, organizations can implement these strategies:

1. Implementing advanced data analysis techniques

Leveraging advanced data analysis techniques, such as statistical modeling and data visualization, allows organizations to gain deeper insights from variance analysis. Through these techniques, businesses can uncover patterns, correlations, and trends within their financial data, enabling more accurate and meaningful analysis.

2. Utilizing automation and technology

Automation and technology, including artificial intelligence (AI), can significantly enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of BlackLine Variance Analysis. Automated data collection and integration, coupled with AI-powered analytics, accelerate the analysis process, reduce manual effort, and provide real-time insights.

3. Establishing clear variance analysis methodologies

Organizations should establish standardized and transparent variance analysis methodologies to ensure consistency and accuracy in the analysis process. Clear guidelines and defined metrics for evaluating variances enable meaningful comparisons and facilitate effective decision-making.

4. Ensuring accurate and timely data collection

Timely and accurate data collection is essential for reliable variance analysis. Organizations should establish robust data collection processes that ensure data integrity and completeness. This includes implementing proper controls, validation mechanisms, and automated data feeds from relevant systems.

5. Enhancing collaboration between departments

Optimizing variance analysis requires cross-functional collaboration. Finance teams must actively engage with other departments, such as operations and sales, to gain a comprehensive understanding of the factors driving variances. This collaboration facilitates more accurate analysis and the development of effective corrective measures.

6. Conducting regular training and development for financial personnel

Investing in the training and development of financial personnel is vital to optimize BlackLine Variance Analysis. Training programs should focus on developing analytical skills, deepening understanding of financial data, and ensuring proficiency in using the tool effectively.

Unlock the Power of the BlackLine Variance Analysis Tool

Optimizing BlackLine Variance Analysis empowers organizations to gain valuable insights into financial performance, make informed decisions, and enhance operational efficiency. By prioritizing strategies such as advanced data analysis techniques, automation, standardized methodologies, accurate data collection, collaboration, and training, businesses can unlock the full potential of this powerful tool. Investing in optimizing BlackLine Variance Analysis enables organizations to maximize their financial management capabilities and achieve sustainable growth.

Prioritize and invest in optimizing BlackLine Variance Analysis today to unleash the true power of financial insights and drive your organization’s success. Schedule a free consultation today with one of our certified BlackLine implementation professionals.

Beyond Reconciliation: The Power of BlackLine Transaction Matching

In today’s business environment, organizations face the daunting challenge of managing large volumes of financial transactions efficiently and accurately. BlackLine Transaction Matching offers a powerful solution that optimizes the matching process. It enables businesses to streamline operations, enhance financial controls, and reallocate employee resources to increase company value.

BlackLine Transaction Matching Overview

BlackLine Transaction Matching is a robust tool designed to match and reconcile financial transactions, reducing manual effort and mitigating the risk of errors. By automating the matching process, organizations can achieve greater accuracy, speed, and control over their financial data.

Benefits of Transaction Matching

Effective transaction matching offers several benefits.

  1. Minimizes the likelihood of errors by eliminating manual data entry and the associated risks of data being entered incorrectly or omitted.
  2. Enhances efficiency by reducing the time and effort required for reconciliations, allowing finance teams to focus on higher value-added tasks.
  3. Improves transparency and accountability by providing a comprehensive audit trail and supporting regulatory compliance.

Organizations may face challenges when implementing transaction matching tools. Common challenges include data quality issues, complex integrations with existing systems, and the need for proper training and documentation to ensure successful adoption.

Industry Applications

BlackLine Transaction Matching can be applied across various industries, including banking, insurance, retail, healthcare, and manufacturing. Use cases range from bank statement reconciliations and intercompany matching to invoice/purchase order reconciliations and credit card or P-card reconciliations.

We also have experience helping clients match inventory quantities, rather than dollar amounts. The flexibility and scalability of BlackLine Transaction Matching make it adaptable to diverse business needs.

Factors to Consider Before Implementing

Integrating your transaction matching tool with your existing systems is essential for seamless operations. Organizations must ensure compatibility with multiple data sources and establish robust integration interfaces. Moreover, planning for scalability and future growth is crucial, as the volume of transactions and data sources may increase over time.

Similarly, data security and privacy are paramount when implementing transaction matching. Organizations should prioritize data encryption, access controls, and user authentication to safeguard sensitive financial information. Compliance with data protection regulations, regular IT security audits, and risk assessments contribute to maintaining a secure environment.

Preparing for Implementation

To achieve the full potential of effective transaction matching, organizations should do thorough preparation, including process design and establishing clear efficiency goals.

  • Gathering necessary data. Before implementing a transaction matching solution, organizations must identify the relevant data sources required for matching. This involves gathering transactional data from different systems, such as ERPs, bank statements, invoices, and subledger systems, and ensuring its availability in a suitable electronic file format.
  • Ensuring data quality and consistency. Data quality is vital for accurate matching and the overall success of a matching project. Organizations must perform data cleansing and standardization processes to ensure consistency and integrity across all transactions. This may involve validating data formats, eliminating duplicates, performing lookups to other data sources, and resolving discrepancies.
  • Identifying relevant matching criteria. Determining the appropriate matching criteria is crucial for effective transaction matching. Organizations must analyze their specific business requirements and establish matching rules based on process-specific criteria such as transaction amounts, dates, account numbers, and customer names.

Strategies for Optimizing Transaction Matching

To maximize the benefits of transaction matching, organizations can implement several optimization strategies.

Automated Data Extraction

Automated data extraction tools can capture transactional data from various sources, eliminating manual data entry and reducing the risk of errors. By leveraging optical character recognition (OCR) and intelligent data capture techniques, organizations can extract relevant data seamlessly.

Standardizing and Cleansing

Data standardization facilitates accurate matching by ensuring consistent formatting across transactions. By cleansing and validating data, organizations can identify and rectify any anomalies, enhancing the overall quality of the matching process.

Rule-Based and Artificial Intelligence-Based Matching

Look for a transaction matching tool with the flexibility to employ rule-based matching and artificial intelligence techniques. Rule-based matching enables organizations to define specific matching rules based on predefined criteria. Artificial intelligence can also identify patterns and make automated matching decisions, optimizing accuracy and efficiency.

Intelligent Exception Handling

Your transaction matching tool should flag and handle exceptions automatically, reducing the need for manual intervention. By implementing intelligent exception handling, organizations can streamline the resolution process and improve overall matching efficiency.

Real-Time Monitoring and Reporting

Real-time monitoring and reporting capabilities enable organizations to track the progress of the matching process and identify any issues promptly. By leveraging customizable dashboards and scheduled reports, finance teams can gain actionable insights and make informed decisions.

Providing Training and Continual Support

Effective user and administrator training are essential for successful transaction matching adoption and optimization. Organizations should invest in comprehensive training programs to empower users with the necessary knowledge and skills. Furthermore, user-friendly documentation and guides, along with a knowledge sharing platform such as the BlackLine Community, can serve as valuable resources for ongoing support.

Testing for Effectiveness

Thoroughly testing scenarios and benchmarking exercises help validate the accuracy and performance of your transaction matching solution. By simulating various matching scenarios, organizations can identify any gaps or areas for improvement and fine-tune their matching processes accordingly.

Similarly, organizations must prioritize continuous improvement and maintenance to maximize the benefits of their transaction matching tool and processes. Gathering feedback from users and stakeholders, tracking performance, resolving issues, and improving features contribute to an optimized matching process.

Take Your BlackLine Setup to the Next Level

Implementing and optimizing a transaction matching tool empowers organizations to achieve greater efficiency, accuracy, and control over their financial data. By leveraging automation, data standardization, artificial intelligence, and exception handling, businesses can materially streamline operations and enhance financial controls. With comprehensive training, integration, and ongoing maintenance, organizations can unlock the full potential of effective transaction matching.

Start optimizing your BlackLine transaction matching today by scheduling time with one of Sensiba’s certified implementation experts. We’ll review your implementation and help you revolutionize your financial reconciliation processes. The goal of our BlackLineBoost is to save you time and resources while ensuring accuracy and compliance.

BlackLine Fiscal Year Closure Checklist

Feeling unsure about closing out your fiscal year? Our BlackLine Fiscal Year Checklist is your go-to resource for a smooth transition into the new year.  Discover the essential year-end administrative tasks  to tackle and best practices for minimizing disruptions to your team.

Choose the Right Family Office Accounting Software to Eliminate Financial Complexity

One of the most effective ways for a family office to improve efficiency and reduce complexity is by selecting the best accounting software for its needs. While popular accounting software such as QuickBooks is suitable for family offices with relatively straightforward investments and accounting needs, a platform such as Sage Intacct may be a better alternative for more complex situations.

Prioritize Your Family Office’s Accounting Software

Several factors, such as delays in obtaining financial reports, relying on manual processes, not meeting family expectations about the availability of information, or uncertainty about the reliability of performance data can indicate the need for more sophisticated software.

In contrast, aligning the right software package to your family office’s accounting and reporting needs can enable real-time visibility, deeper insights, and increased efficiency.

Situations Where Sage Intacct May be a Better Alternative:

  • A broad range of asset classes. Expanding the family office portfolio beyond stocks and bonds, such as private equity and other alternative investments, can create complexity that may be challenging to manage with basic accounting software. Similarly, tracking multi-generational investments or using multiple custodians can create issues in consolidating financial reports.
  • Manual processes and report preparation. Some accounting packages may not be able to integrate investment accounts with the rest of your family office business on a timely basis. Relying on manual processes and reports can create delays as well as opportunities for inadvertent or inappropriate data manipulation or fraud.
  • Budgeting and forecasting challenges. Dedicated financial management packages that go beyond basic needs can enhance your family office budgeting and financial planning, enabling more effective decisions and a more efficient management process.

Aligning Accounting Software with Your Family Office Needs

In contrast, choosing a more sophisticated financial management software for your family office operations can lead to powerful advantages:

  • Integration with other tools. A flexible solution that integrates with other applications is essential to eliminating manual processes and achieving comprehensive reporting. Some of the more common integrations we see in family office include, investment management reporting, bill pay, expense management, and payroll. It can be significantly easier for family office principals and staff to monitor and administer these aspects using one application instead of several tools.
  • Comprehensive reporting. A sophisticated family office financial platform allows family members to customize dashboards and reports in different formats, highlighting the metrics they find most important. Similarly, comprehensive reports allow family members to gain deeper insights about investment performance and opportunities.
  • Unified visibility. Ongoing consolidation of results from different investment classes provides real-time insights while improving financial management and planning.
  • Stronger controls. Sophisticated reporting tools have built-in controls to help mitigate the risk of fraud or errors. It will also save considerable time in the reconciliation process.

Still Worried About Changing Your Family Office’s Software?

Some of the common challenges that family offices face when graduating to a more advanced accounting platform include the prospect of losing the familiarity of QuickBooks, having to train staff on a new system, and potential disruptions to office routines. While these concerns are understandable, an effective implementation plan can enable the family office to enjoy the considerable benefits of upgrading their basic financial management package to a more sophisticated platform.

If you are ready to switch accounting software or need more information, contact our team. We can help!

Streamlining Fiscal Year Closure: Rolling into 2025 with BlackLine

Are you unsure about closing your fiscal year and transitioning to the next? Our BlackLine experts will guide you through the essential year-end administrative tasks. By the end of this video, you’ll feel confident rolling into the new year with a solid foundation for success, minimizing disruptions to your team.

 

Mastering Financial Solutions: Sage Intacct vs. NetSuite

For busy finance leaders, implementing an ERP platform can help an organization improve efficiency, unlock performance insights and opportunities, and reduce operating costs.

Choosing an ERP can be a complex decision, requiring careful analysis of the organization’s needs and its software options. For many middle-market companies and nonprofit organizations, the choice often comes down to Sage Intacct vs. Netsuite.

In a Sensiba webinar, experienced implementation consultants compared the platforms, discussed the ideal customer for each, and highlighted the value of working with a trusted partner to help organizations make the best choice for their specific needs.

Overcoming Finance Frustrations

Financial leaders often explore ERP solutions to address common challenges that cause extra work for finance teams and, more importantly, can hinder organizational growth and efficiency by preventing company and functional executives from receiving timely access to performance data.

Common obstacles include not having enough time, people, or information to generate actionable insights from financial results, relying on manual processes and workarounds to move data between financial tools, and cumbersome approval processes.

“The lack of coherent and cohesive reporting from a variety of different systems almost always manifests in a ton of spreadsheets,” said Tom Achor, the Sage Intacct Practice Director at Sensiba LLP. “Excel is a beautiful tool for quickly wrangling a lot of data, but it’s not an ERP.”

Similarities Between Sage Intacct and NetSuite

During the webinar, Achor and Adam Chaikin, a partner with Opal Creek Consulting, explained how Sage Intacct and NetSuite are more similar than different in serving the needs of middle-market companies.

Both platforms are natively cloud-based, unlike ERP tools designed to run on-premises that are later ported to cloud interfaces. This provides several advantages for their customers, including the ability to integrate easily with other financial tools an organization uses and a smoother pathway for updates and upgrades.

“Both of these products have very vibrant ecosystems,” Chaikin said. “These ecosystems mean [customers] have access to professionals and software that can extend your platform and tailor-make that platform to your business…Each of these platforms gives you the capability to look deeply into the portfolio of products that are available to be tailor-made to your needs.”

The tools both offer core financial applications including general ledgers, accounts payable and receivable, cash management, and collaboration tools. They also include a variety of automation tools designed to increase efficiency and reduce the amount of manual labor finance teams endure daily or monthly.

Differences Between Sage Intacct and NetSuite

Beyond the core financial applications, the platforms differ slightly in their approach to related offerings. NetSuite, for instance, is designed to serve as an all-in-one platform for companies that need basic CRM, payroll, or similar tools. Sage Intacct, in contrast, subscribes to a best-of-breed philosophy that relies on deep integration with specialized tools.

Choosing between these approaches generally depends on an organization’s preference for using a single platform or diverse tools, or how complicated its needs might be for the related applications.

Ideal Customers

NetSuite and Sage Intacct are also different in the organizations and industries they’re best suited for. An ideal Sage Intacct customer, for instance, will typically have between 20 to 500 employees and at least $4 million in gross revenue.

Leading industries for Sage Intacct include:

  • Nonprofits and foundations
  • Professional services
  • Family office and wealth management
  • SaaS
  • Construction and real estate.

An ideal NetSuite customer tends to be slightly larger, starting at 50 employees and around $10 million in gross sales. Common industries for NetSuite include:

  • Business services
  • Manufacturing
  • High tech
  • Retail
  • Wholesale
  • E-commerce.

Getting Implementation Assistance

For a finance leader considering an ERP solution, getting advice and support from an experienced consultant that takes time to understand the organization’s needs can improve the evaluation and implementation process.

Chaikin said an effective technology initiative starts with exploring the organization’s needs and future plans, understanding the consultant’s experience with the customer’s industry, and evaluating how an ERP would fit the company’s technical infrastructure and culture.

Beyond the implementation, effective planning has to include user training and ongoing support to ensure the organization receives the expected benefits from its ERP implementation.

“Being an ERP implementation consultant is like being a bartender, a therapist, and a technologist,” Chaikin said. “We need to be there. We need to listen and comprehend deeply what the issues are, and we need to provide innovative solutions to your business problems.”

For more details, explore the webinar video and the accompanying slides on this page. To learn more about choosing between Sage Intacct and NetSuite, contact us.

Unlocking the Power of BlackLine Transaction Matching in Suspense Accounts

BlackLine’s Transaction Matching tools provide a nearly seamless way for finance teams to reconcile suspense accounts, enhancing operational efficiency and accuracy while reducing the time and effort involved in this important process.

As with other types of transactions, BlackLine automatically reviews suspense account transactions as they come in overnight. The tool matches and reconciles transactions that meet the finance team’s rules and tolerances before flagging exceptions that need further attention. This automation allows the finance team to spend a few minutes focusing on analyzing unmatched items, rather than hours manually reconciling accounts.

BlackLine ensures data quality through automated data extraction, standardization, and cleansing processes. This helps in maintaining consistent and accurate data, which is essential for effective reconciliation of suspense accounts. The tool’s ability to understand complex data relationships and apply business rules ensures transactions are matched accurately and exceptions are flagged for review.

Of the many types of accounts BlackLine can help finance teams reconcile automatically, overnight suspense account matching is one of the most common areas where organizations can benefit.

BlackLine provides real-time monitoring and reporting capabilities, enabling organizations to track the reconciliation process and identify any issues promptly. This feature is crucial for maintaining the accuracy and timeliness of financial reporting.

Handling High-Volume Transactions

High-volume general ledger accounts, such as payroll clearing accounts, often have numerous transactions flowing through them and reconciling those accounts manually can be a daunting task. BlackLine’s Transaction Matching tool is designed to handle these volumes effortlessly by clearing transactions automatically based on predefined logic, significantly reducing the manual workload.

Finance teams can set matching tolerances to allow transactions within a specified date range or amounts to be reconciled automatically. This feature is particularly useful in scenarios where transactions do not align perfectly but still fall within acceptable limits. As a result, the tool can clear many transactions without human intervention, ensuring that only genuine exceptions need to be reviewed manually.

For example, a finance team trying to close out the organization’s books for May can easily identify transactions that cleared in early June and segregate them for further reconciliation on the June books.

For payroll clearing accounts, required adjustments such as an employee whose pay is being garnished for alimony, child support, or a similar mandatory deduction can be identified and reconciled. BlackLine allows the finance team to book the appropriate entry and provide supporting comments and documentation about the adjustment, who recorded it, and the underlying reasons.

Stronger Accuracy and Control

BlackLine enhances financial reconciliation accuracy by minimizing human error. The tool’s predefined logic ensures only transactions meeting specific criteria are matched, leaving little room for mistakes. BlackLine also provides a clear audit trail, documenting every transaction to improve.

Similarly, BlackLine enhances internal controls by providing a comprehensive audit trail and supporting regulatory compliance. Every transaction is documented, which improves compliance and transparency while reducing the risk of errors and fraud.

Increased Efficiency Through Automation

Overall, automating the reconciliation process frees up the finance team to focus on higher-value tasks. Instead of spending hours matching transactions manually, accountants can spend time analyzing exceptions and providing valuable insights by collaborating with business unit leaders.

If you’re interested in learning more about how BlackLine can transform your reconciliation processes, reach out to the BlackLine practice at Sensiba. We can help you leverage the power of automation to enhance your financial operations.

Automating Credit Card Matching With BlackLine

One of the most powerful ways busy accounting teams can unlock time for higher-value risk management and data analysis is by automating as much of the credit card reconciliation process as they can.

BlackLine’s Transaction Matching tool offers powerful ways to help finance teams identify and review higher-risk credit card transactions. The tool automates the vast majority of routine purchases that fall within the organization’s policies and risk tolerance.

Using BlackLine, data from a variety of sources including data feeds from the organization’s bank and credit card issuers can be downloaded and matched automatically (typically overnight). BlackLine reconciles transactions that match details within the various data feeds and identifies the small minority of transactions that require corrections or human investigation.

Multi-Tiered Transaction Matching

One of the challenges finance teams face in reconciling credit card payments is the fact that every transaction will generate data from several sources. A purchase will typically create separate records from the point-of-sale (POS) system, payment processor, and potentially the organization’s general ledger.

This results in a need for two- or three-way matching in which a transaction must be reconciled. First, between the POS system and processor. Then, between the processor and the organization’s bank. And each transaction will have several data fields including the amount, date, and authorization code that need to match for a transaction to be reconciled.

As BlackLine reviews credit card data fields, it sorts transactions into three broad categories:

Matched Transactions

Transactions for which key details are identical in all the data sources are sorted into the “matched transactions” category. Generally, this will include most of a company’s credit card purchases.

Suggested Matches

Transactions for which most, but not all, of the key details are identical are routed into a “suggested matches” category for review by the finance team. This will typically include transactions such as amounts higher than a pre-set limit for a spending category or missing an authorization number.

In these instances, the finance team can provide any missing data and approve the reconciliation or set it aside for further review. 

BlackLine’s matching logic can also be adjusted to account for typical exceptions. For instance, it’s not uncommon for a transaction to clear the payment processor a few days later. The organization can establish a tolerance within the matching rules that says if the other details are the same, but the dates are off by four days, the transaction can be matched automatically.

Unmatched Transactions

The final category, “unmatched transactions,” would require manual review by the finance team. This will typically be a small fraction of the overall credit card transaction volume.

Overall, this automated transaction review and matching streamlines an onerous reconciliation process and frees up the finance team’s time for higher-value activities that contribute more directly to the organization’s performance and success.

To begin taking advantage of BlackLine’s powerful transaction matching tools, contact us today.  

Optimizing Bank Reconciliations With BlackLine  

For busy accounting teams, automating bank reconciliations offers one of the fastest ways to increase efficiency, improve financial risk management, and free up time for higher-value data analysis.  

Using BlackLine’s Transaction Matching to reconcile bank accounts to the general ledger allows finance teams to spend less time squinting at multi-colored spreadsheets and more time identifying high-risk transactions and analyzing the organization’s financial performance.  

Automated bank and general ledger matching provide several benefits to finance teams and organizations, including: 

  • A reduction in errors associated with manual data entry. 
  • Lowering the time and effort required for reconciliations.  
  • Providing a comprehensive audit trail and supporting evidence. 

How BlackLine Automates Bank Reconciliations 

Using BlackLine’s tools, bank transactions occurring during a set period (such as a month) are downloaded into the system and reviewed by the platform’s matching engine. From there they are sorted into three categories: Matched, Suggested Matches, and Unmatched.   

Matched Transactions 

Transactions for which key details (such as the check number and amount) match general ledger data precisely are sorted into the “matched transactions” category. In most instances, this will include 80% to 90% of an account’s transactions in a given period.  

Suggested Matches 

Transactions for which most, but not all, of the key details are identical are routed into a “suggested matches” category for review by the finance team. This will typically include transactions with potential issues such as missing check numbers, or a transaction that falls outside the expected date range for clearing the bank.  

In these instances, the finance team can provide any missing data and approve the reconciliation of a flagged transaction or set it aside for further review.  

Unmatched Transactions 

The final category, “unmatched transactions,” would require manual examination and intervention by the finance team. In most instances, this should only be a small handful of exceptions that can be identified and processed rather easily.  

Improving Automated Matching   

As finance professionals review suggested matches and unmatched transactions, they can adjust BlackLine’s rules to account for a broader range of acceptable variations. If, for instance, several transactions are cleared beyond the default date range, the finance team can adjust the range to include a higher volume of transactions that still fall within the organization’s acceptable tolerances.  

Over time, these adjustments to the system’s matching rules can help the finance team enhance the benefits of their transaction matching tool while streamlining reconciliations and the financial close.  

Well-directed automation can free up valuable time for the finance team, allowing them to focus their time and attention on processes that provide higher value to the organization and allow them to partner more effectively with business unit leaders.  

To begin taking advantage of BlackLine’s powerful transaction matching tools, contact us today.  

Ditch the Paper Chase: Automate Your Credit Card Management

Automated credit card accounting platforms are streamlining expense management by replacing outdated paper-based processes and spreadsheets with mobile-friendly submissions and automatic reconciliations.

Expense reports have always been challenging for employees on the go, as well as finance teams trying to decipher often-haphazard, outdated, or incomplete information. Now, automated platforms such as Fyle enable companies to address the primary challenges of credit card management: collecting receipts, controlling approvals, and tracking card spending effectively.

Streamlining Expense Management with Automated Solutions

Using Fyle, a user is prompted by a text message to take a photo of a credit card receipt immediately after a transaction and submit the image by replying. When the receipt is sent, it’s matched with the charge and the transaction is automatically coded and ready for completion and approvals. Once reviewed and approved, the expense is automatically synced to the accounting software and charged to the appropriate account, location, department, and project.

Benefits of an Automated Management Solution

Automated solutions help finance teams address many administrative and processing challenges associated with manual expense reporting, including:

  • Broken bank feeds
  • Chasing down employees for receipts
  • Manually coding detailed credit card statements
  • Checking line items for errors or fraudulent activities
  • Matching receipts to card transactions
  • Keying expense data into accounting systems
  • Wasting hours on the reconciliation process.

Beyond the administrative headaches, problems administering credit card expenses can affect the organization’s cash flow. For many professional service companies and some nonprofits, friction in recording card charges delays the revenue associated with invoicing customers for billable expenses.

Automated Credit Card Reconciliation

One of the primary benefits of automating credit card processing is real-time visibility into the organization’s payment card spending. As soon as a card is swiped, the user is notified to submit a photo of the receipt. The image enables immediate visibility of the transaction, and accelerates real-time updates on spending associated with specific budgets and projects.

Fyle also offers real-time integration with accounting software platforms, allowing companies the option to process transactions as credit card transactions, accounts payable bills, or journal entries. Finance teams can tag the transactions with dimensions including employees, departments, locations, projects, or other user-defined dimensions. Over time, Fyle’s machine learning will become more capable of properly coding each company’s unique expenses.

Tips for Selecting an Automated Solution

When considering a credit card management platform, companies should look for solutions that connect directly with the leading payment processors such as Visa, MasterCard, or American Express. This connection allows companies to continue using their existing payment cards and prevents the need to rely on bank feeds to reconcile credit card transactions.

Another option to look for is the ability to issue virtual cards. They allow companies to set spending limits on transactions and restrict the type of charges that can be applied to a company credit card. Additionally, cards can be easily removed if an authorized user leaves the company.

Companies should look for solutions that allow users to submit digital receipts directly from their email or collaboration tools, and to automate user notifications for pending items such as unsubmitted receipts or unreviewed transactions.

To learn more about automated credit card management, contact us.

Sensiba has been named the 2023 Americas Newcomer Partner of the Year by BlackLine at the company’s annual Partner Kick-Off event. This recognition reflects our dedicated efforts to help clients enhance their accounting and reporting processes while establishing a foundation to automate and optimize processes as they grow.

As a BlackLine partner, Sensiba helps clients improve their finance functions’ efficiency and controls, as well as their financial close, risk management, and daily operations by replacing time-intensive, manual processes with an easy-to-use suite of powerful finance automation tools. BlackLine features automated workflow capabilities including analyzing data feeds, matching transactions, and reconciling accounts.

Each year, BlackLine recognizes partners that excel at driving customer value.

“We’re proud to have been selected by BlackLine for this honor, and we enjoy collaborating with them to help our clients automate their reconciliation and financial close processes with advanced workflow capabilities,” says Consulting Partner-in-Charge Frank Balestreri.

“Sensiba truly exemplifies the power of teamwork between BlackLine and our partners,” says Michael Otto, BlackLine’s Vice President of Global Strategic Alliances & Partner Programs. “Over the last year, Sensiba has gone above and beyond during our sales cycles with custom proofs-of-concept and demos that impressed the customers so much that BlackLine is the only solution viable for their use case. Our joint wins have been impressive in 2023 and we expect the collaboration and success to continue in 2024.”

Intuit recently announced it will no longer sell new subscriptions to the following QuickBooks software in the United States after September 30, 2024:

  • Desktop Pro Plus
  • Desktop Premier Plus
  • Desktop Mac Plus
  • Enhanced Payroll

Security updates, product updates, and support for existing subscribers and those who own the software will continue. Existing subscribers will be able to renew.  Intuit, however, will not develop the software further or allow future purchases. Read more about the change here.

Now is a great time to consider moving to QuickBooks Online or another cloud-based accounting software to enjoy the latest innovations and productivity enhancements.  Moving to the cloud unlocks significant time savings and efficiency advantages in today’s working environment.

Schedule a Meeting

If you would like to discuss your alternatives, please schedule a meeting to discuss your needs.

Assembling a High-Performance Restaurant Tech Stack

An important way for restaurants to increase efficiency and profitability is by optimizing the technologies underlying their operations. Building the right tech stack helps keep restaurants ahead of their competition and sets the foundation for ongoing success.

Gain Real-Time Visibility and Insights

Implementing the appropriate tools provides a systemized process to optimize your workflow and provide management with real-time visibility into the company’s operational and financial data.

In turn, being able to analyze a restaurant’s operations in real-time enables rapid decisions without having to wait for data to be collected and formatted into reports that become outdated quickly. A well-designed tech stack can streamline processes, improve productivity across organizational departments, and allow management to focus more on team members and the guest experience.

Streamline Processes and Automate Repetitive Tasks

An effective tech stack also lets you automate repetitive tasks, such as processing invoices, that otherwise require manual efforts that could introduce errors in your data and reports. For example, mailing a stack of vendor invoices from a restaurant to a corporate office for processing adds needless time and cost.

Automating time-consuming processes can also help teams optimize labor costs by enabling staff members to focus on higher-value tasks. Instead of processing invoices or reconciling bank balances, for instance, the finance team can invest its time in analyzing data and preparing forecasts to support more effective management decisions.

A single-unit restaurant company would likely be served with a basic accounting package, but adding and integrating software tools can increase efficiency as an operator adds locations and expands into new geographic areas.

Common Restaurant Technologies

While the most suitable tech stack will vary according to how many locations a restaurant company is operating, the most common technologies can be found below.

Back-of-House:

  • An accounting platform, such as Sage Intacct, that enables real-time data and analysis as well as budgeting and forecasting. Every day, for instance, an operator should understand key performance statistics such as sales, food costs, labor costs, and other KPIs.
  • An invoice automation tool, such as Plate IQ powered by Ottimate, to reconcile vendor invoices and manage payments.
  • A labor and schedule management platform to help you align staffing levels with expected demand.
  • A financial close management tool such as BlackLine to automate reconciliations and journal entries.
  • A fixed-asset management system to optimize the maintenance and service life of equipment such as walk-ins, grills or cooktops, and other parts of your physical infrastructure.

Guest-Facing:

  • Online ordering and point-of-sale (POS) systems that integrate with inventory and purchase data.
  • Digital menu boards that offer the flexibility to manage offerings and price changes without having to reprint menus.

As you evaluate potential technology tools, integrating and sharing data with the rest of your tech stack through APIs (application programming interfaces) offers important benefits in reducing manual processes, increasing efficiency, and reducing operating costs.

Optimizing Technology Implementations

As restaurant operators consider technology implementations, it’s important to first understand the processes they are thinking about automating and to eliminate any inefficiencies before they start an implementation. It’s a common mistake for companies to try to make their software fit an inefficient process and to blame the technology if they don’t receive the expected productivity gains.

Another common mistake is implementing a technology tool and immediately customizing it to match ingrained processes. The closer you can stick to an off-the-shelf implementation, the less you must worry about adding needless complexity to your tech stack or having an automated process broken by a future software update.

To learn more about optimizing your restaurant tech stack, contact us.

How Accounting Software Helps Technology Companies Grow

An important step in an emerging technology company’s growth is choosing the right accounting and financial management platform for its current and future needs.

Relying on a basic accounting program designed for small businesses can hinder an emerging company’s growth. Basic tools require manual work that diverts attention and fail to provide insights that help the company’s management understand the factors driving its financial and operational performance.

Shifting to accounting software like Sage Intacct can help technology companies get a better handle on their revenue and increase their ability to recognize revenue properly under ASC 606, Revenue From Contracts with Customers.

Benefits of an Accounting System Unique for Technology Companies

The primary benefits of an industry-focused accounting software to growing technology companies include:

  • Tracking detailed metrics about performance and opportunities
  • Reducing manual effort and reliance on spreadsheets
  • Understanding revenue by customer segments
  • Identifying customer churn rates
  • Aligning business development activities to market demand
  • Providing more detailed information to board members and investors

Importance of Providing Detailed Metrics for Funding

If a technology company is seeking latter-stage funding, or considering a public offering, it will need to provide detailed metrics to potential investors about its current performance and expected growth rates. Failing to do so will likely disqualify a company from attracting sophisticated investors.

Improving Revenue Recognition

Industry-focused accounting software can also help technology companies comply more easily with the revenue recognition requirements of ASC 606.

For instance, SaaS companies typically have revenue from a variety of sources within a given customer contract. These often include the underlying software, with revenue that must be recognized over the life of the agreement, but also related services such as training, maintenance, and technical support. Trying to allocate these elements monthly using spreadsheets can be challenging and often frustrating, but they can be tracked automatically in Sage Intacct.

Similarly, cloud software contracts with usage-based billing can be difficult to monitor manually, often resulting in billing and revenue-tracking errors.

Improving Revenue Forecasting

Manual revenue calculations also hinder the ability of technology companies to develop more than a basic understanding of their financial performance. They may be having more success, for instance, in reaching customers within specific industry verticals or company sizes. However, they won’t be able to quantify that success if they’re wasting time reconciling data listed in separate spreadsheet files.

An industry-focused accounting platform enables management to analyze revenue trends and develop forecasts based on data, rather than intuition and optimism. Being able to understand and trust their financial and operational data enables technology companies to improve efficiency and better align management strategy with their business development efforts.

What Accounting Software Is Right for Your Tech Company?

As an emerging tech company, it’s critical to take control of finances and streamline your accounting processes. Don’t let the burden of manual bookkeeping and reporting hold you back. By selecting the right accounting software, you can automate your financial tasks, ensure accurate record-keeping, and gain valuable insights into your company’s financial health.

Selecting the right software for you can be challenging. Contact us to learn more about how Sage Intacct can help your technology company understand its performance and opportunities.

Getting Your BlackLine Admins Prepared for 2024

As BlackLine administrators and finance leaders prepare to roll their instance into 2024, the end of the calendar or fiscal year requires some important steps and provides a great opportunity to review, update, and optimize your system settings.

Perhaps the first and most important item on your year-end to-do list is adding monthly, quarterly, and annual period end-dates for the coming calendar year. Be sure to indicate which periods are quarter-ends or the fiscal year-end.

If you skip this step, system imports will fail and users won’t be able to choose the proper period to complete their assignments. As you prepare these dates, it’s a good practice to only add period end-dates for one year at a time so users don’t have to scroll through lengthy menus to find the current-year periods.

Assign Due Dates

As a related step, it’s vital to assign due dates for the routine tasks within each period. This will usually include reconciliations, variance, and BlackLine’s consolidation integrity manager (CIM). If the due dates are left blank, users won’t see when their assignments are due and may not complete them on time. This failure can also delay the close process.

Forgetting to include due dates will also impact any alerts or notifications you’ve turned on and will prevent you from running reports based on late or past-due statuses for reconciliations, variance, or CIM because there isn’t a due date for BlackLine to use in its calculations.

Close Prior Periods

It’s also important to make sure all prior periods have been closed for importing balances. Ideally, this should take place monthly. Failing to close periods can allow transactions with incorrect dates to be imported into a prior period. This, in turn, will overwrite balances for your reconciliations and trigger corrections that will require documentation and could lead to questions from your external auditors.

Check Custom Frequencies

If your BlackLine instance includes custom frequencies, such as a frequency other than monthly for a given module, you’ll need to assign the correct period end-dates to the corresponding frequencies. For example, the 12/31 period will commonly be assigned to monthly, quarterly, and annual frequencies, and will likely have assigned tasks, variances, or reconciliations for each of those periods.

Review Your Matching Module

Year-end is a great time to review your matching module settings to identify any unloaded transactions that need administrative action, or unmatched transactions and posting dates outside of your organization’s tolerance. It’s also a good time to review your matching rules to ensure they’re performing properly.

For instance, a rule that has not captured any transactions may need to be adjusted, or perhaps it can be eliminated. Having outdated or unnecessary rules in the system can increase the job time of the matching engine, so it’s helpful to review your settings and rules periodically.

Other Items to Review

It’s a best practice to review the following settings as you prepare for a new year:

Administrative Tasks

List any steps and documentation associated with administrative tasks. It’s easy to overlook tasks that are only done once per year. Providing screenshots and other completion documentation can help you answer any audit-related questions.

First Transaction Imports

Monitor your first transaction imports. Be sure the dates on the files are rolling over successfully into the new year.

User Roles and Access Rights

People and roles change over the course of the year and you want to be sure everyone has the appropriate access (and that you’re not paying for licenses that aren’t being used).

Account Settings

Review the account settings for reconciliations due to groupings or account rules. Be sure the new year’s due dates are aligned with management expectations.

Organization’s Holiday Calendar

Upload your organization’s holiday calendar into BlackLine to ensure due dates are calculated correctly. If January 1 is an organizational holiday, for instance, you don’t want users to start the first business day of the new year with notifications that tasks are overdue. If you have questions about closing out your fiscal year or optimizing your BlackLine implementation, contact us.

We can help you streamline your transition into the new year and avoid common mistakes that can lead to issues later. Beyond questions, our no-cost BlackLineBoost assessment will review your settings and help you harness BlackLine’s powerful tools more effectively

Fyle and Sensiba LLP have partnered to help organizations by reducing time to submit receipts by almost 50% and empowering finance teams with real-time spend analytics.

NEWARK, Del., November 6, 2023 /PRNewswire/ Fyle Inc, the expense management platform, has partnered with Sensiba LLP, a “Top 100 Accounting Firm” specializing in tax, audit, and consulting services, to automate and deliver expense reporting and credit card reconciliation solutions.

Fyle’s ability to integrate with all credit cards to provide real-time feeds, and its robust two-way integration with Sage Intacct and QuickBooks Online, made it easy for Sensiba to select Fyle as a technology partner. When employees spend on their cards, they’re notified immediately via text, email, or Slack. They can then reply to the message with a picture of the receipt and Fyle matches it to the right expense instantly.

This partnership compliments and expands Sensiba’s software and service practices that already include Sage Intacct and outsourced accounting. It enables AI expense management to deliver spend insights and offer more control to finance leaders.

“We have been working to build a world where not a single second is spent managing expenses. Administering staff expenses isn’t core to anyone’s role, but it’s time-consuming and frustrating”, said Yashwanth Madhusudan, CEO, Fyle. “We look forward to working closely with the Sensiba team to bring the combined best-in-class solution to businesses in the US.”

“Fyle’s AI-enabled expense management eliminates time consulting and delayed expense reporting while delivering spend analytics to finance,” said Kevin Shives, Partner, Sensiba. “It can be used standalone or alongside financial management solutions like Sage Intacct and QuickBooks Online. By partnering with Fyle, we can help a broader range of businesses manage their expenses, categorize financials, and develop scalable processes for controlling the spending across a company. Strong financial operations have to start with a strong foundation of processes, technology, and people. ”

About Fyle

Fyle has the singular aim of reducing the time spent on expense management. Nestled within everyday tools like Gmail, Outlook, Slack, MS Teams, text messaging, and email, Fyle provides employees a unique way to submit expense receipts on the go.

Fyle directly integrates with business credit cards to provide real-time data feeds. Fyle’s AI-enabled engine instantly codes and categorizes spend information and pushes the data to accounting software like NetSuite, Sage Intacct, QuickBooks Online, and Xero.