Consolidate your financial review processes within your SAP system

⇨ SAP Account Substantiation and Automation by BlackLine, financial review option provides a proactive approach to reviewing financial statements

⇨ Proactive analysis helps identify and resolve potential issues before the period end

⇨ Generative AI creates management disclosures, generating summaries of key drivers of financial variances and footnotes

BlackLine in June released its SAP Account Substantiation and Automation by BlackLine, financial review option offering as an SAP Solution Extension, providing SAP customers a financial reporting analytics solution for their SAP core software. 

The solution – also known as “financial review option” – enables an organisation’s finance teams to proactively review financial statements at both the entity and group levels. It also aims to replace reactive manual processes with a proactive continuous approach, resulting in faster variance analysis and improved collaboration and control. 

Andrew Stutzman, SAP GTM Director and Director of the Financial Review and Analytics pillar at BlackLine, discussed in a webinar the importance of having timely financial insights through the help of financial review option and its integration with SAP. 

“The guiding inspiration for the solution is that for financial insights to be considered timely, they have to be delivered before the financial close,” Stutzman said. 

Stutzman was joined by SAP Director of Product Marketing, Finance Solutions Pete Graham, who said financial management that still relies on manual processes can lead to longer cycle times and inaccuracies in financial reporting. 

“Cycle times are getting longer in terms of how teams are trying to manage all the data that they’re using in their financial close process,” Graham said. 

“These disparate systems and the number of systems that can be used also can put more pressure on decision making and a lot of executives are feeling they don’t quite have the right information at their fingertips to make accurate decisions.” 

Graham added that manual work in the financial close processes has increased, and business leaders were feeling the stress of not being able to make the most accurate reporting and decisions. 

Stutzman said simply having information is not the same as having insights. “Having a view of your balance sheet or income statement period over period, quarter over quarter may be informational but is not insightful by itself.” 

“Any ERP can provide that information, but there’s never really been a comprehensive framework in the market that can prepare, collate and certify insights all before the financial close begins.” 

BlackLine has historically focused on completeness and accuracy of financials, but since it has become a benchmark expectation, the company looks to differentiate by providing insights and timely information. 

“Since [financial review option] is a novel solution space in the market, every organisation is doing it in approximately the same way from a mechanical perspective, so it’s not your typical leaders versus laggards where you have lagging organisations that need to catch up,” Stutzman said. 

“It’s really an opportunity for first movers to get out on the front foot and establish the lead benchmark here. We view this as something of a unique opportunity for the office of the CFO.” 

The solution works with both legacy and modern systems, including SAP S/4HANA group reporting, providing flexibility for customers with fragmented environments with multiple ERP systems in place. 

Having proactive analysis done throughout the financial reporting process allows organisations to identify and resolve potential issues before the period end, further improving timeliness and accuracy of financial insights. 

Financial review option also enables organisations to detect financial variances early during the data monitoring phase. Variance analysis is also performed continuously to provide real-time explanations for financial variances, which also in turn improves the audit trail. 

The solution also has continuous data synchronisation with SAP systems to ensure financial data is up-to-date and accurately reflected in variance explanations, enhancing the efficiency and accuracy of the financial close process. 

Data is available to users in real time through continuous aggregation and analysis regardless of the status of the consolidation process. 

Generative AI is also leveraged for creating management disclosures, generating summaries of key drivers of financial variances and footnotes, as well as compiling financial summaries. This helps reduce the time required to prepare management reports and ensures all relevant information is captured accurately. 

“This isn’t technology that replaces the human brain, but rather it is a copilot to connect teams within your business by helping democratise those insights,” Stutzman said.