account reconciliation

Simplifying Financial Processes with an Amortization Reconciliation Template in BlackLine

March 14, 2025 by Revelwood

Accounting tasks – such as amortization reconciliations – can be time-consuming with the potential for errors. BlackLine can be a game-changer for accounting.

BlackLine ensures accurate tracking and reporting with an amortization reconciliation template. Whether you’re reconciling prepaid accounts, managing insurance premiums, or automating journal entries, this template is a game-changer. Let’s dive into how it works and why it’s indispensable for finance teams.

What is an Amortization Reconciliation Template?

An amortization reconciliation template is designed to track and report the allocation of costs, such as prepaid expenses, over time. It provides a structured framework for managing various financial items, such as insurance premiums or other amortizable accounts. For instance, you can monitor starting and ending amortization dates, descriptions, original invoice amounts, and the current balances in one consolidated view.

Amortization Reconciliation Templates in BlackLine

In this video, you’ll see Adam Riskin, Revelwood’s Blackline practice leader, demonstrate how to use and customize amortization reconciliation templates to streamline your financial processes.

Key Features of the Template

1. Summary View:
The template offers a snapshot of your amortization items. For example, it displays the starting and ending dates, invoice descriptions, and the remaining balances. This enables quick analysis and ensures financial accuracy.

2. Traditional Waterfall Schedule:
With the click of a button, you can view a detailed waterfall schedule showing balances for each month. This feature helps track progress and facilitates month-by-month accountability.

3. Journal Entry Automation:
By toggling to the net activity view, you can see the monthly journal entries required for your GL system. For example, if you’re in July and the amount to record is $4,000, this can be exported directly to Excel and imported into your ERP system, significantly reducing manual work.

Customization and Flexibility

Adding New Items:
Adding amortizable items like a dental insurance premium is simple. You input the invoice amount, beginning, and ending dates, and the system calculates the amortization schedule based on your preferred method (e.g., straight-line or partial).

Editable Schedules:
Flexibility is a core feature. Schedules can be updated mid-year to reflect changes in amounts or timelines. For example, you can adjust future amounts or even specific line items to ensure the schedule remains accurate.

Advanced Calculation Methods

The template includes various calculation options to cater to different scenarios:

Straight-Line: Equal allocation over the period.
Partial Amortization: For partial months, the system prorates the allocation.
Catch-Up Adjustments: If an invoice arrives late, the system can calculate and apply past-due amortizations to the current period.

These methods ensure accuracy and compliance with financial reporting standards.

Enhanced Efficiency with Automation

One standout feature in BlackLine is the automation capability. The system can automatically certify reconciliations when GL balances match the expected amounts. For instance, if your GL balance for July aligns with the scheduled $27,000, the system marks it complete, saving time and reducing manual oversight.

Document Management

Organizing supporting documents is easy. Attach PDFs or Excel files, such as invoices, directly to your schedules. This feature ensures everything related to the reconciliation is in one place, improving documentation and audit readiness.

Why Use This Template?

Accuracy: Reduces errors in financial reporting.
Efficiency: Automates repetitive tasks and journal entries.
Flexibility: Adapts to changes in financial schedules.
Compliance: Ensures adherence to accounting standards.

The amortization reconciliation template is a robust tool for accounting professionals. It not only streamlines complex financial processes but also improves accuracy and saves time. By leveraging BlackLine’s automation and customization features, organizations can focus on strategic financial planning instead of getting bogged down by manual tasks.

Why Email Alerts Matter

Email alerts are invaluable in notifying team members when action is required. For example:

Overdue Reconciliations: The system can alert preparers when a reconciliation becomes past due.
Pending Approvals: Approvers can receive nightly emails summarizing reconciliations waiting for their review and approval.

These notifications ensure accountability and keep the reconciliation process running smoothly.

Watch this demonstration from Adam Riskin, our BlackLine practice leader to learn how easy it is to configure email alerts in BlackLine.

How to Configure Alerts

Follow these steps to set up and customize email alerts in BlackLine:

1. Navigate to the Manage Alerts Screen

The Manage Alerts screen is your control center for enabling and customizing alerts. On the left panel, you’ll find a list of available alerts that can be toggled on or off based on your team’s needs.

2. Activate Specific Alerts

Let’s say you want to alert preparers about overdue reconciliations. BlackLine offers two alert types:

Key Reconciliations Overdue: Notifies preparers when key reconciliations are past due.
Non-Key Reconciliations Overdue: Targets non-key overdue reconciliations.

To activate an alert:

Select the desired alert.
Click the “Activate Alert” option to turn it on.

3. Customize the Email Content

You can tailor the email subject line and body text to your preferences. Keep in mind:

Variables in brackets (e.g., [Reconciliation Name]) dynamically populate with specific details. Avoid editing these.
Adjust the overall message to align with your team’s tone or instructions.

4. Schedule Alert Delivery

Set the frequency and timing for the alert. Options include daily, weekly, or other scheduling preferences. For instance:

Choose “Daily” from the dropdown menu.
Set the desired time zone and delivery time (e.g., 3 AM Pacific Time).

5. Save and Verify

After configuring the settings, click the “Save” button. The alert’s status will change from gray to green, indicating it’s active.

Monitor Alert History

One of BlackLine’s standout features is its alert history. You can view the record of alerts sent, including the recipients and timing. This is helpful for auditing purposes or ensuring alerts are functioning as intended.

Maximize BlackLine Alerts for Your Team

With a bit of setup, BlackLine alerts can significantly enhance your team’s efficiency and accountability. Explore the full range of available alerts on BlackLine’s website and activate the ones that best suit your processes.

By leveraging email alerts, you can ensure your reconciliation workflow stays on track, helping your team focus on what matters most.

Streamlining Financial Accuracy with Accrual Reconciliation Templates in BlackLine

February 7, 2025 by Revelwood

The accounting team is tasked with maintaining accurate financial records. Accrual reconciliation plays a vital role in ensuring financial accuracy. Leveraging the right tools can make the process much more efficient.

What is Accrual Reconciliation?

Accrual reconciliation is the process of matching accrued expenses with their corresponding balances in the general ledger (GL). This ensures that financial statements accurately reflect the company’s liabilities and expenses. While many organizations still perform this process manually using spreadsheets, adopting standardized templates and automated systems, such as BlackLine, can significantly enhance efficiency.

The Power of the Accrued Reconciliation Template

Watch our BlackLine Practice Leader, Adam Riskin, explain how to effectively use and customize accrual reconciliation templates in BlackLine.

An accrued reconciliation template provides a structured approach to tracking and validating accrued balances. Here’s how it simplifies the reconciliation process:

1. Automated Roll-Forward Schedules: At the beginning of the year, the expected monthly accrual amounts are scheduled. The system automatically rolls these forward, maintaining an accurate forecast of what the GL balance should be for future months. For example, if the monthly accrued amount is $50,000, the template ensures the schedule reflects this amount each month, creating consistency and predictability.
2. Real-Time Adjustments: If business needs change, the accrued amounts for future months can be adjusted. For instance, if July’s accrual needs to increase from $50,000 to $75,000, this can be updated in the system. However, historical amounts that have already been certified remain locked, ensuring data integrity.
3. Handling Complex Scenarios: The template accommodates scenarios like bonus payouts. If bonuses are paid twice yearly, such as in June and December, the schedule allows for adjustments. This ensures accruals are reduced to zero for payout months while maintaining accurate records for future periods.
4. Standardization Across Teams: One of the most significant benefits of using an accrued reconciliation template is its standardization. Teams often have varying methods for creating schedules, which can complicate reviews and audits. Templates ensure consistency, making the reconciliation process more transparent and streamlined.
5. Auto-Certification for Time Savings: The system’s auto-certification feature is a game-changer. When the GL balance matches the scheduled amount for a given month, the reconciliation is automatically marked as complete. This reduces manual effort and provides confidence in the accuracy of financial data.

Why Transition from Excel?

Many accounting teams still rely on Excel for accrual reconciliations. However, Excel’s flexibility can sometimes lead to inconsistency, making the review process cumbersome for auditors and approvers. A dedicated template not only saves time but also enhances accuracy by minimizing human error and ensuring a standardized format.

Accrual reconciliation templates in BlackLine are a valuable tool for accounting teams seeking to optimize their processes. By automating schedules, enabling real-time adjustments, and fostering standardization, these templates improve accuracy and efficiency. If your organization is still navigating the complexities of manual reconciliations, transitioning to a standardized template system could be the transformative change you need.

Are you ready to simplify your accrual reconciliation process? Start exploring the possibilities today and bring precision and efficiency to your financial workflows!

The calculation method is set to “end” for non-straight line amortization schedules, which allows the schedule to be created based on the provided amounts.
Next, you’ll copy and paste the data into a WordPad file and save it to the file share.
As an administrator, you’ll navigate to the Import Data screen, select the items v7 import type, and import the file into the system.
Once this is complete, you’ll see the the amortization schedule in the reconciliation within BlackLine.

This video is one in a new series on different ways to import reconciliation supporting items with BlackLine. Stay tuned for more videos on importing supporting items.

Import Multiple Amortization Schedules into a Reconciliation with BlackLine

October 31, 2024 by Revelwood

We recently launched a new video series on different ways to import reconciliation supporting items with BlackLine.

In our latest video, BlackLine Practice Leader, Adam Riskin, demonstrates how to import multiple amortization schedules into a reconciliation with BlackLine.

Step 1. Importing Multiple Amortization Schedules from an Excel File

The Excel file contains two prepaid items: health insurance premium and dental insurance premium, set to amortize over 12 months.
Columns C and D represent the start and end dates of the amortization, while columns E and F hold the invoice amounts and open dates.
Make sure that the field names in the Excel file match exactly with those in BlackLine for proper importing.

Step 2. Importing the Amortization Schedules

The calculation method, typically straight line, needs to be set before importing the file.
Browse and select the Excel file containing the scheduled items.
Click the “Import” button is to add the schedules to the reconciliation.

Step 3. Viewing Imported Schedules

The imported schedules will appear in the amortizable Schedule section of the reconciliation.
You’ll see the amortization amount for each month.
The “Roll Forward” button provides a traditional view of the amortizable balance at the end of each fiscal period.

Handling Non-Standard Schedules

BlackLine can calculate standard schedules automatically, but non-standard schedules may require manual input.
Non-standard schedules, such as those with varying amounts each month, may not use auto calculation methods like catch-up.
Your system administrator can use a specific technique to import these non-standard schedules.

Stay tuned for more videos from Adam on how to import supporting items into BlackLine.

Best Practices for Account Reconciliations

October 3, 2024 by Revelwood

This is a blog post from our partner BlackLine, sharing nine best practices for streamlining your account reconciliation process.

Account reconciliation is an accounting process that verifies the accuracy of entries in the business ledger by comparing them to the information in bank statements, business records, vendor invoices, expense receipts, credit card statements, and other data sources.

Nine Account Reconciliation Best Practices

Accountants can follow these nine best practices to ensure the accuracy and integrity of their account reconciliation.

1. Automate:

Expand automation to cover the entire reconciliation process. Like so many aspects of business accounting, account reconciliation benefits greatly from automation. Digital applications reduce time in the process by minimizing or even eliminating manual data entry.

Software can be programmed to operate on rules that improve the integrity and consistency of the information gathered and the analysis process. Digitally enhanced identification of errors and discrepancies significantly improve the accuracy of the reconciliation process. Artificial intelligence (AI) enhances the ability to identify and match appropriate documentation, reducing omissions and cutting down processing time.

2. Evaluate and Improve:

Consider how processes may need to change over time due to factors like employee turnover, new input fields, and M&A activity. As in any other process, how accountants conduct their account reconciliations should be evaluated and improved over time. Internal changes to the company structure and operations, as well as external changes in the market in which the business operates, can have a significant impact on how account reconciliations need to be conducted. Regular adjustments should be made to ensure that the process reflects these changes.

Accountants should review data files, fields of entry, and matching rules and make changes as necessary to ensure that all the data and steps in the reconciliation process reflect the most up-to-date business practices.

3. Standardize the Reconciliation Process:

Use a consistent reconciliation method. To ensure reliability, accountants should endeavor to create and employ a standardized process. Standardization creates consistency in reconciliation. Well-defined parameters and easily understood metrics reduce errors and save time. Standardized methods allow for more insightful information comparisons over time, which helps identify trends and patterns in financial data.

4. Identify and Assess KPIs:

Look at key performance indicators. Using specific metrics to evaluate the account reconciliation performance will ensure the process’s integrity. Accountants should first establish their key performance indicators (KPIs). Metrics such as accuracy, timing, and the number of errors or discrepancies help to measure the effectiveness of the process.

Establishing benchmarks for these and other metrics and regularly evaluating how the process performs against them will identify areas for improvement. The KPIs themselves may also need to be adjusted over time to reflect changes to the business and the process themselves.

5. Regularly Update Account Reconciliation Policies:

How reconciliation is performed largely depends on the policies that the business sets to govern its execution. Policies can govern many aspects of the process, including the timing and frequency of reconciliations, the steps that are followed, who is responsible for various aspects of the reconciliation process, and how errors are identified and reconciled. In the spirit of evaluating and improving, these policies should be regularly monitored and updated to reflect changes to the business and its financial activities.

6. Reconcile in Sections:

Break the process into sections. Reconciliation is a complicated process that will benefit from an incremental approach. It can be broken down into smaller steps to facilitate and make the process more manageable. For example, reconciliation can be broken down into basic elements: identifying relevant accounts, gathering data, setting a timeline, comparing statements, examining individual transactions, identifying discrepancies, and reconciling errors. Tackling each individually and sequentially will make the more extensive process more manageable.

7. Analyze Discrepancies:

Analyze any differences that are found. Once discrepancies are found, this is an opportunity for accountants to do their detective work and determine the cause. A careful review of the ledger information and the source data will help pinpoint the underlying reasons. Discrepancies can be caused by various factors, including manual errors in data entry, improper calculations, timing errors, omitted transactions, delayed payments, and even fraud. Identifying the nature of the discrepancy will determine how it should be addressed and reconciled.

8. Finish On Time:

Review and finish reconciliations on time. Timing is important in the reconciliation process. Unnecessary delays can lead to more errors or discrepancies being overlooked and carried over into another reporting period. Timely completion of reconciliation can help the business close its accounts efficiently and as scheduled, and it can help identify fraud, errors and other trends before they become compounded or cause more problems for the business.

9. Stick to Accounting Rules:

Follow generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). In the United States, public companies must follow a set of rules, standards, and procedures set by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). These GAAP are designed to ensure consistency, accuracy, and transparency in financial reporting across various industries.

GAAP requires businesses to use the double-entry bookkeeping system. This system supports GAAP’s goals and is the most common tool for reconciliation because it requires entering a transaction into the general ledger twice. Each entry is recorded as a debit or a credit, and the two always balance out.

Why Is Account Reconciliation Important?

Account reconciliation is an essential business accounting function. It helps businesses address several fundamental objectives in their accounting processes.

All businesses must identify errors and fraud, generate accurate financial statements, file taxes, and comply with myriad laws and regulations at the federal, state, and local levels.

Reconciliation ensures the accuracy and reliability of financial practices and statements to support efficient operations and sound decision-making by management, lenders, and investors.

account reconciliation

What is an Amortization Reconciliation Template?

Amortization Reconciliation Templates in BlackLine

Key Features of the Template

Customization and Flexibility

Advanced Calculation Methods

Enhanced Efficiency with Automation

Document Management

Why Use This Template?

Read more about Accounting & Accounts Receivable:

Why Email Alerts Matter

How to Configure Alerts

Monitor Alert History

Maximize BlackLine Alerts for Your Team

Read more about Accounting & Accounts Receivable:

What is Accrual Reconciliation?

The Power of the Accrued Reconciliation Template

Why Transition from Excel?

Read more about Accounting & Accounts Receivable:

Read more about Accounting & Accounts Receivable:

Here is the process:

Overview of the Import File

Setting Up the Monthly Schedule

Calculation Method and Upload Process

Read more about Accounting & Accounts Receivable:

Step 1. Importing Multiple Amortization Schedules from an Excel File

Step 2. Importing the Amortization Schedules

Step 3. Viewing Imported Schedules

Read more about Accounting & Accounts Receivable:

Nine Account Reconciliation Best Practices

1. Automate:

2. Evaluate and Improve:

3. Standardize the Reconciliation Process:

4. Identify and Assess KPIs:

5. Regularly Update Account Reconciliation Policies:

6. Reconcile in Sections:

7. Analyze Discrepancies:

8. Finish On Time:

9. Stick to Accounting Rules:

Why Is Account Reconciliation Important?

Read more about Accounting & Accounts Receivable:

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