BlackLine and Kyriba Combine to Improve Financial Close Management

by Ogo Nwanyanwu, Research Director, SAPinsider

BlackLine partners with Kyriba to deliver greater cash visibility

BlackLine Inc. and Kyriba, announced a new partnership to provide organizations with greater collaboration between Finance, Accounting, Treasury and Risk teams.  The partnership offers mutual customers of their respective solutions, the capacity to accelerate bank connectivity and enhance cash visibility.  

Mel Zeledon, SVP of Channels & Alliances at BlackLine, remarked in the joint PR release, “With our new partnership, BlackLine provides Kyriba customers with market-leading solutions that fuel treasury teams with real-time, reliable and data-backed analytics to automate bank reconciliation and other key financial close and accounts receivable processes. At the same time, BlackLine customers can now leverage Kyriba’s extensive network of global banking relationships to streamline bank connectivity.”

Robust community interest in optimizing financial close

Through the streamlined integrations of their technologies, the two vendors expect to deliver improved efficiency, at a lower cost structure, for both SAP and non-SAP customers. CFOs can leverage BlackLine’s transaction matching solution with Kyriba’s bank connectivity framework to drive automation across financial close processes. 

Data from our research, highlights potential interest in this integration from SAPinsiders, as a path to optimize financial close management. Based on survey results, ‘improving the efficiency of the financial close’ (54% of respondents) and ‘automating financial closing process’ (45%) ranked as the top 2 choices for their organization’s Central Finance and financial close strategy. 

Bank connectivity as a service

Kyriba accelerates the onboarding of thousands of banks worldwide, across 10,000 bank format variations via pre-built connections, thus creating a fire hose of real-time bank statements reporting. Organizations can access the bank reporting fire hose and more easily integrate BlackLine’s transaction matching solution to match millions of transactions in minutes, covering up to 95% of bank reconciliations. 

Joe Marcin, Chief Revenue Officer at Kyriba, commented in the joint PR release, “Coupling Kyriba’s innovative treasury capabilities with BlackLine’s market-leading financial close and accounts receivable automation solutions is a natural evolution in financial close, analysis and reporting. We are excited to bring Finance and Treasury closer through our partnership with BlackLine and drive strategic value for the Office of the CFO.”  

The technology pairing should deliver value across bank connectivity, cash position visibility, accounts receivable automation, and financial close management. 

What Does This Mean for SAPinsiders?

Potential less complex transformations. For organizations currently evaluating a transition to SAP S/4HANA, the partnership could offer a more streamlined journey. Efficient global banking connectivity as a service, coupled with bank reconciliations automation has the potential to improve near-term ROI of financial transformations. 

Agility in post-pandemic economy. Cash position visibility is critical to remain nimble to current operating environment. Accounts receivables automation can help CFOs unlock capacity and target higher priority activities. 

Strategic value at scale. Both SAP & non-SAP mutual customers of BlackLine and Kyriba should benefit from the partnership. Multi-national organizations navigating complex bank reconciliations at scale could see greater value from the integration, than smaller customers. 

Future functionality. Assuming BlackLine and Kyriba can deliver on the promises of this new integration, SAPinsiders may see future value-adds from this partnership related to intercompany accounting, fraud detection and analytics. 

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