SAP updates financial reporting analytics tool

SAP has added a financial reporting analytics solution to its range of SAP Solution Extensions via partner BlackLine.

BlackLine’s Financial Reporting Analytics will be sold under the name “SAP Account Substantiation and Automation by BlackLine, financial review option” as an SAP Solution Extension.

SAP Solution Extensions are add-ons to SAP’s core software that provides additional functionality developed by third-party vendors like BlackLine.

SAP Account Substantiation and Automation by BlackLine, financial review option enables an organisation’s finance teams to proactively review financial statements at both the entity and group levels.

The solution aims to replace reactive manual processes with a proactive continuous approach, resulting in faster variance analysis and improved collaboration and control.

“BlackLine has been a long-time SAP partner and uniquely provides solution extension capabilities in the record-to-report and intercompany spaces,” BlackLine co-CEO Owen Ryan said.

“With our newest product, we offer customers a fully integrated, end-to-end solution for their critical finance and accounting processes. SAP Account Substantiation and Automation by BlackLine, financial review option, is just the latest of several BlackLine solutions sold directly by SAP to help deliver greater transparency, efficiency, and control for the Office of the CFO.”

The financial review option is an update of the “SAP Account Substantiation and Automation by BlackLine, variance and compliance option” product. The new solution extends the capabilities from an entity basis to a group-level basis, allowing group accountants to benefit from the same automation and workflow capabilities as their entity-level colleagues.

The solution allows proactively perform financial reviews of an entity or a group of entities ahead of the period-end close, identifying and resolving potential discrepancies and bottlenecks.

“BlackLine helps businesses streamline end-to-end accounting processes by providing account substantiation, accounting automation, intercompany governance, and now proactive financial review capabilities for both entity and group levels,” SAP chief accounting officer Christopher Sessar said.

“By offering BlackLine’s cloud-based solutions as SAP Solution Extensions, we are enabling our global customers to adopt and experience risk reduction, greater efficiency, real-time reporting, and improved transparency.”

SAP used the full SAP Account Substantiation and Automation solution to streamline accounting processes for leased assets, automating processes that involved 35,000 contracts and 1.7 million transactions for its global accounts payable team.