Introduction

For every Shared Services/GBS organization, even those lucky enough to be on a single instance of an ERP, there are hundreds of technology choices, each with different configuration options.  When you include the process design decisions that are required for each process impacted by the technology, performance differences and the ability to fully optimize the functionality of the selected technologies will vary greatly.

Fortunately, for members of Peeriosity-100, it is possible to understand different approaches used at peer companies for how technology is leveraged and how underlying work processes are designed to create optimal value.

Company Experience

A Peeriosity-100 Peercast featured a panel of member companies discussing their level of satisfaction with account reconciliation software.  The one-hour Peercast was an interactive discussion between the panel and Peercast attendees.

Here is the discussion guide for the Peercast:

1. Describe your current environment for Account Reconciliations, for example, the number of legal entities, different ERP’s or Instances of an ERP.
2. How have these solutions impacted Shared Services processes during the past 3 to 5 years? What impact have the solutions had on quality, timeliness, and cost?
3. 3^rd party solutions for Account Reconciliations and ERP solutions for Account Reconciliations often have a range of configuration options, with different modules or packages available. What modules or packages are you using, which ones are you considering, and which ones have you decided not to implement?
4. What was the software selection process? Did you have a formal Request for Proposal (RFP)?  Who was involved in the selection process?  How were different solutions evaluated?
5. What was the process for implementation? How large was the project team? Did you use outside resources? Did you have a pilot?  How was training provided?  Who received training?
6. How involved has Internal Audit been in reviewing solutions and providing guidance?
7. If you had to start all over, what would you do differently? Why didn’t go as well as you would have liked?

Polling Results Review

A Peeriosity-100 poll provides supporting detail for the technology solution selected for account reconciliations, and the satisfaction each member company has had with their selected solution.  The most popular solution, at 46% usage, is Blackline, followed by Oracle (Hyperion) at 15% and Trintech at 15%.   Other options selected include Onestream (8%) and internally developed solutions (8%), with 8% indicating that no automated solution is in place.  Here are the details:

The second polling question asked about the level of satisfaction with the performance of the selected technology, and the level of satisfaction with the cost.  Interestingly, when you look at the details for companies who selected Blackline, all indicated they were satisfied with performance, with mixed results for cost satisfaction.  For companies selecting Oracle, all were neutral regarding performance, and satisfied regarding cost.  For Trintech, satisfaction with performance was either neutral or dissatisfied, and cost satisfaction was neutral.

Here are many of the comments from members:

• Blackline – I indicated Cost Dissatisfied because I have found that enhancements/additional modules tend to be pricey. 

• Oracle – The system is not the issue we have a hard time coming up with a policy that applies across all groups effectively. 

• Blackline – We are in the process of fully deploying Blackline functionality in our Oracle environment. It has been used in part of our group, but large use of excel spreadsheets being uploaded into Blackline indicates improvements are needed. 

• Onestream – Utilizing OneStream for account reconciliations. 

• Trintech – we leverage the zero balance and no movement for auto reconcile. We have not fully explored all the capability in Trintech. 

• Oracle – We had Blackline but switched to Oracle with our move to Fusion. We really liked Blackline but once we switched to an Oracle suite of products, ARCS was the logical choice due to delivered integrations. I think they are too similar and they leap frog each other with advancements and tools to keep themselves relevant. We used Blackline with Infinium ERP. 

• Follow up question from a peer – Interested in how you’d compare the two. Do you find Oracle has same/similar functionality?  We’re looking potentially at moving the opposite direction. 

• Blackline – Great SAP partner, good integration across Blackline modules, reporting is woefully inadequate. All ‘monitoring’ of financial operations from Blackline (e.g., recons, tasks, journal entries, IC, etc.) are performed outside Blackline in PowerBI. 

• Blackline – We have used Blackline for years (Reconciliations, Tasks, Matching, Journals) and are very satisfied. I will agree that the reporting from blackline is lacking.

Closing Summary

A challenge for all Shared Services/GBS organizations is that there are many technology solutions available, with many ways to configure each solution selected, and many ways to design underlying work processes.  As the saying goes, “the devil is in the details”, which is why Peeriosity-100 members have a significant advantage by being able to directly compare which solution was selected, and then have direct interaction with peers to understand how the solution was configured, with insight to the design of underlying work processes.

What account reconciliation solution are you using at your company? How satisfied are you with the selected solution’s performance and cost?

Who are your peers and how are you collaborating with them?

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Peercasts are private, professionally facilitated webcasts that feature leading member company experiences on specific topics as a catalyst for broader discussion.  Access is available exclusively to Peeriosity-100 member company employees, with consultants or vendors prohibited from attending or accessing discussion content.  Members can see who is registered to attend in advance, with discussion recordings, supporting polls, and presentation materials online and available whenever convenient for the member.  Using Peeriosity-100’s integrated email system, Peer Mail, attendees can easily communicate at any time with other attending peers by selecting them from the list of registered attendees.

Polling is available exclusively to Peeriosity-100 member company employees, with consultants or vendors prohibited from participating or accessing content. Members have full visibility to all respondents and their comments. Using Peeriosity-100’s integrated email system, Peer Mail, members can easily communicate at any time with others who participated in Polling.