As an accountant, your day is filled with numbers, spreadsheets and deadlines. Every company relies on their accounting team to maintain financial stability and continuity by keeping track of transactions, expenses and profits. In today’s digital age, the role of an accountant has evolved from traditional bookkeeping and tax filings to taking a more strategic, predictive approach to financial planning. With the right tools and technology, accountants can now optimize their workflows and gain insights to make key business decisions.

One tool that stands out is BlackLine, the cloud-based finance and accounting software that automates mundane tasks and streamlines processes. A typical day in the life of an accountant that uses BlackLine starts with logging in to the software’s dashboard, which displays their team’s tasks for the day. The dashboard provides a real-time view of all the assigned work, outstanding tasks and allows for task reassignment and priority settings. With this comprehensive view of accountants’ workload, they can manage their time effectively and ensure timely completion of tasks.

The first task for an accountant may be balance sheet reconciliations, which involve comparing general ledger data to the reconciling items to verify their accuracy and completeness. In the past, reconciliations have been a manual and tedious task that requires significant time and effort. But with BlackLine, the software can enable faster, more accurate reconciliations. The system automates mapping, matching, and enrichment of data, and identifies exceptions, variances, and errors for corrective action. By using BlackLine, accountants can complete reconciliations in a fraction of the time it would take manually, giving them time to work on other critical activities.

Once the reconciliations are completed, accountants can move on to transaction matching. This task involves comparing two sets of transaction data to ensure that they correspond correctly. With BlackLine, the process of transaction matching is automated, enabling accountants to identify and resolve discrepancies with ease. The system compares a company’s transaction information with its counterparties’ transaction information, which reduces human error and increases accuracy in matching financial data. The time saved can then be used to perform more calculations, analyze trends, or conduct financial risk assessments.

After transaction matching, accountants can perform variance analysis, looking for discrepancies between actual and expected results and identifying factors that contributed to the variances. For instance, if a company’s revenue was lower than expected, accountants would investigate where the revenue loss occurred using BlackLine. The software provides interactive dashboard displays, trending charts, and data analytics tools, which enable accountants to identify anomalies or trends in real-time. This bird’s eye view of the financial data highlights areas that need improvement or attention, uncovering opportunities for growth, revenue optimization, or cost savings.

The final task for the day would be approval workflows. Approval workflows include reviewing and signing off on balance sheet accounts or journal entries, ensuring compliance with regulations, and ensuring internal control policies are followed. One of the most significant benefits of using BlackLine is its automation capabilities. The software enables visualization of approvals, routing for approval, and integration of approval with external tools. Accountants can simply “click to approve” or “click to reject” on the approvals that are generated from BlackLine, eliminating the risk of misplaced or incomplete approvals and facilitating compliance assurance.

In conclusion, a day in the life of an accountant is a complex and crucial cycle that keeps businesses financially stable. The use of BlackLine software can dramatically reduce the manual and tedious tasks traditionally associated with accounting, freeing up accountants to focus on analyzing data, making recommendations, and proactively solving issues. The software’s dashboard, balance sheet reconciliations, transaction matching, variance analysis, and approval workflows are all critical tools that ensure accounting processes are streamlined, error-free, and efficient. Ultimately, BlackLine empowers accountants to be more strategic in their approach to business and ensures financial stability.

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This blog post is based on a white paper from our partner BlackLine.

In today’s competitive business landscape, recruiting and retaining top finance and accounting talent is a priority for organizations striving for success. However, the labor and skills shortage, compounded by the recent phenomenon known as “The Great Resignation,” has made this task increasingly challenging. To overcome these obstacles, organizations must leverage technology to optimize their talent strategy and create an environment that attracts and retains the best professionals. In this blog post, we will delve into the power of technology, with a focus on automation and digital transformation, in recruiting and retaining finance and accounting talent.

Challenges in Talent Acquisition and Retention

The shortage of skilled finance and accounting professionals poses a significant challenge for organizations seeking to fill key positions. The Great Resignation, marked by a surge in employee turnover, further complicates the talent acquisition landscape. To address these challenges, organizations must understand the factors that contribute to employee satisfaction and work towards creating an environment that fosters engagement, growth, and work-life balance.

The Role of Technology in Talent Strategy

Technology, especially automation and digital transformation solutions, plays a pivotal role in strengthening talent strategy. By implementing advanced technologies, organizations can optimize their current talent pool and attract new talent by offering engaging and meaningful work experiences. Thomson Reuters highlights the importance of technology in attracting and retaining staff, including enabling remote work capabilities, driving automation, and improving workflow efficiencies.

Streamlining Processes and Reducing Manual Work

One of the key advantages of technology in finance and accounting is the ability to streamline processes and reduce manual work. Tasks such as reconciliations, journal entries, and financial close processes can be automated using software solutions like BlackLine. By eliminating mundane and repetitive tasks, finance and accounting professionals can focus on higher-value work that leverages their skills and expertise. This not only increases job satisfaction but also enhances productivity and efficiency within the team.

Optimizing Talent’s Capacity and Time

Automation and digital transformation allow finance and accounting professionals to optimize their capacity and time effectively. By reducing the burden of manual work, these technologies enable professionals to engage in more value-added activities and support strategic objectives. By leveraging their expertise in areas such as data analysis, financial forecasting, and strategic decision-making, finance and accounting talent can contribute significantly to organizational growth and success.

Enabling Remote and Hybrid Work

Modernizing accounting processes with cloud-based solutions offers the opportunity for remote or hybrid work arrangements, a top motivator for many job seekers. Technology facilitates collaboration and communication across geographically dispersed teams, allowing organizations to tap into a broader talent pool. Remote work options also promote work-life balance, which is increasingly valued by finance and accounting professionals. Embracing remote and hybrid work models enhances the organization’s appeal, making it more attractive to top talent.

The Benefits of Technology in Recruiting and Retaining Talent

Implementing technology in Finance and Accounting not only enhances employee satisfaction but also delivers several benefits to organizations. By empowering employees with automation tools, organizations can increase productivity, improve accuracy, and reduce errors. This, in turn, leads to enhanced operational efficiency, cost savings, and improved customer experience. Moreover, the reputation of organizations that invest in technology and create an environment focused on professional growth and development is strengthened, attracting top talent and retaining existing high-performers.

Recruiting and retaining top finance and accounting talent is a pressing challenge for organizations, especially amidst a labor and skills shortage. However, by harnessing the power of technology, particularly automation and digital transformation, organizations can optimize their talent strategy and create an environment that attracts and retains the best professionals. Streamlining processes, reducing manual work, optimizing talent’s capacity and time, and enabling remote or hybrid work arrangements are among the many benefits that technology brings to the finance and accounting domain.

Download your copy of F&A Priorities: Recruiting and Retaining Talent

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This is a guest post from our partner BlackLine, examining the drivers behind the mass exodus in accounting roles.

Like everything else in accounting, the numbers tell the story.

The profession is experiencing a steep decline in qualified personnel, as many trained accounting professionals are choosing to leave their careers for another line of work. According to the Wall Street Journal, more than 300,000 U.S. accountants and auditors have left their jobs in the past two years, representing a 17% decline.

While the timing of these numbers makes them easily dismissible as yet another fallout from the 2-years long battle against COVID-19, the trend actually began before the global pandemic prompted so many people to re-evaluate their lives and their work. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals a trend of departure that started in 2019, well before the pandemic began.

In a related pattern, recent grads with accounting degrees are having second thoughts about the profession, and many of these would-be accountants are choosing to go into a different line of work before they even get started. Furthermore, fewer college students are enrolling in accounting programs to begin with.

The number of U.S. students who completed a bachelor’s degree in accounting declined nearly 9% to about 52,500 in 2020, down from almost 57,500 in 2012, according to the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants (AICPA).

Both trends lead to fewer qualified candidates entering the field. AICPA data confirm these trends, showing notable declines in recent years both in the number of students completing a bachelor’s degree in accounting and of candidates taking the CPA exam. 

Why Are Accountants Quitting?

The reasons for this decline are many and varied. Long, grueling hours, especially during month- and year-end close top the list. While standard 40-hour weeks are the norm for most accountants, that figure can go as high as 70 to 80 hours per week during certain periods.

Repetitive work can also wear on those who have spent time in the profession. Many accountants feel bored, tired, unchallenged, and lacking growth opportunities in their positions. It can take up to 15 years to become a partner in larger accounting firms—that’s a long time to endure the demands of the job. Many feel that they have learned all they can from their jobs and are looking for a new challenge.

Another factor is contributing to the decline in the number of accountants in the U.S. As it has for so many other industries and professions, technology has drastically altered day-to-day jobs, and many accountants cite technology as a reason for leaving the profession.

Accounting professionals’ relationship with technology is complex. Some don’t want to learn new technology while others feel that technology has made them irrelevant. Finally, some feel that their employer has not embraced technology enough, or has not provided them with adequate training, leaving them to toil in the manual dark ages or fumble with a software platform they don’t know how to use properly.

Enter Accounting Process Automation

Good news! Technology doesn’t have to be the bane of accounting or of those who have made it their profession. In fact, it can be a resource to make the profession more productive, efficient, and fulfilling.

Accounting has traditionally been a process of manual data entry, review, and revisions, which can be tedious and time-consuming activities.

With the advent of software as a solution, much of this process can now be done with the aid of computers, which can receive and store data, perform financial calculations, and produce balance sheets and other closing reports. A more recent development, artificial intelligence (AI) further simplifies data capture, reduces error, and minimizes repetitive manual tasks.

With the right approach to automation, businesses can reduce and even eliminate activities in the closing process that traditionally rely on manual steps. They can reduce risk, error, and fraud by strengthening controls and improving accuracy. Businesses can become more strategic, holistic, and forward-thinking.

All of this leads to improved productivity. Instead of overburdening employees, it frees them up to perform more high-level and high-valued tasks. It allows them to participate in more strategic and analytic thinking. This makes them more engaged and fulfilled in the job.

Employees who are involved in the process of change and improvement that technology has to offer feel more vested in their work and the results.

Far from alienating or overburdening employees, these improvements can help increase retention by making the closing process more efficient and enhancing the value of the employees involved. Employees feel like they have gained a new set of skills, elevated their level of work, increased their importance to the organization, and improved the process which they administer.

A Smart Approach to Accounting Software

Adopting accounting automation software is not a simple task, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming either. True, if done improperly or in haste, it won’t be effective, and employees can feel alienated. The process requires its own unique approach that involves thinking, strategy, and evaluation. Each business is distinct, and the successful adoption of software will reflect this truth.

As an industry leader in financial close automation, BlackLine has taken steps to help businesses transition to automation by developing a Modern Accounting Playbook (MAP) for steering finance through the Great Resignation. This expertly curated strategic framework helps organizations modernize their accounting and finance functions by establishing a deliberate and stepwise process for the adoption of software solutions.

Businesses start with core functionality to help automation address some of the basic elements of their close process. Improvements include a central workspace with automated trial balance import, standardizing reconciliations with automation, rule-based transaction matching for bank files, and other changes.

Building on these improvements, they can expand adoption in alignment with other elements of their business strategy with such enhancements as direct ERP journal posting, automated flux analysis with proactive alerting, and complex matching scenarios.

The MAP allows businesses to adopt technology in a strategic, forward-thinking approach by helping them identify their most pressing accounting challenges. Software is applied in a way that suits their needs specifically.

This sets the stage for future growth and integration of the technology into the close process. This thoughtful approach enables businesses to close faster, increase efficiency, reduce risk, and continuously improve their closing process.

Get your copy of this playbook to learn how to win the new war on retaining and attracting talent. You will learn five strategies to reimagine F&A for the future of work, including how to:

• Design a digital hybrid workplace that Accounting will love
• Equip your organization to fight digital burnout
• Automate away the soul-sapping work that makes accountants leave

This blog post was originally published on the BlackLine blog.

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This is a guest post from our partner BlackLine, detailing the results of its annual survey of global F&A leaders.

War in Eastern Europe. Global inflation. Ongoing supply chain issues. Just one of these is enough to cause serious impacts on business—and currently, the world is enduring all three, along with countless other local and regional economic disruptions.

While Finance and Accounting (F&A) has a reputation for remaining calm and pragmatic in a crisis, it can be overwhelming for these departments to help steer their organizations through difficult times while keeping up with their day-to-day work. BlackLine wanted to hear directly from F&A professionals on how they’re feeling about these issues and more.

Survey Results of F&A Executives & Professionals

In a survey of 1,483 C-suite executives and F&A professionals in medium and large companies around the world, BlackLine discovered not-so-rosy outlooks and insights including:

• Nearly two thirds (63%) of all respondents said they expected a worldwide recession within a year
• Almost all (95%) expect rising interest rates to have an impact on the way their business operates
• More than six in ten (62%) C-suite and F&A professionals predict that their companies’ financial reporting will come under increased scrutiny over the next year

Whether or not these results surprise you, they beg for real solutions and actionable ways to address them.

Trust (or Lack of) in the Numbers

Since 2018, our surveys have shown C-Suite trust in the accuracy of the financial data at their companies has fluctuated from a high of 71% in 2018, dropping to 58% in 2022. In addition, in our 2022 results, nearly half (48%) of overall respondents indicated they do not have complete confidence that their company’s financial data is accurate.

The top three reasons given for this mistrust were:

1.     Some or all of my team are working from home—making it difficult to know if the right processes are being followed

2.     Data from too many sources—making it difficult to know if all data is being accounted for correctly

3.     A continued reliance on clunky spreadsheets and other outdated processes that leave finance teams in the dark until month-end

As previously noted, most of the C-suite and F&A professionals we surveyed this year are braced for recession. They are also concerned that rising interest rates will push up the cost of company borrowing and mean that their customers will have less to spend.

As a result of relative mistrust in numbers along with these other external factors, the accuracy of companies’ financial data is expected to come under more scrutiny. And, outside of this survey, there have been other developments, such as the SEC’s new clawback rules, which bring even more importance to certainty in financial numbers.

How Financial Automation Helps Increase Confidence in the Numbers

The various factors discussed in the survey expose a weak link in many F&A departments: manual, error-prone, and outdated processes.

And consider this—nearly two-thirds (62%) of our respondents agreed that the ability to view their companies’ financial data in real time will be a “must-have” for business survival over the next 12 months.

How can F&A departments solve for archaic processes and gain real-time visibility? By employing the intelligent use of automation.

Leveraging a solution like BlackLine to automate end-to-end accounting processes—including the financial close, accounts receivable, and intercompany—helps reduce manual errors and increases the quality of your numbers.

In addition, automating manual, transactional work frees up capacity for F&A teams, so more time can be spent on proactively identifying anomalies in the data and ensuring the integrity of the financial reporting. And it allows for earlier views of the financial reports to proactively tackle issues—this directly addresses the concern of 62% of our respondents!

Of course, technology and automation are only part of the solution—they cannot reduce economic uncertainty. However, employing solutions like BlackLine can help companies become more efficient, reduce errors in financial data, and provide visibility so F&A departments can make faster, smarter, and more informed decisions.

Get your copy of the full report Eye of the Storm: F&A’s Role in Responding to Instability & Volatility to understand:

• Who is responsible for steering a business through a recession?
• F&A’s role in responding to global instability and volatility
• The top challenges and pain points, such as intercompany transactions
• The importance of cash flow in turbulent economic period

This blog post was originally published on the BlackLine blog.

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This is a guest post from our partner BlackLine, explaining 2023 predictions for Finance & Accounting.

Look for organizations to focus on process optimization, talent upskilling, and finance agility as major drivers for business leadership in the coming year, according to BlackLine experts Dominick Fatibene and James Tilk.

Technology Powering Transformation

In the webinar “New Year, New Trends: 2023 Predictions for Finance & Accounting,” they predict how technology advances will power transformations to address the top priorities of business leaders in 2023. They also show that transformation is an area of significant concern among CFOs. The webinar points out that 82% of CFOs report that investments in transformation are accelerating, and 70% of CFOs feel that they would be at a disadvantage without financial transformation.

How are organizations doing that?

• Hyper-automation which streamlines and automates key parts of processes with leading-edge technologies. “I think this is an area where we’ll be seeing some of the largest investments for enterprise-wide, organization-wide process improvement,” says Fatibene. 
• Advanced analytics and reporting which involve increasing speed to insight and reporting visibility “To gain more opportunities to analyze information before making critical decisions,” he says.
• Self-service tools that leverage technology to put power back in the hands of users, Fatibene notes.
• Master data management is a critical resource, says Fatibene, because “When it comes to transformation, everything we do starts with data: how we organize it, how we prepare it and how we use it. That’s why a lot of financial transformation initiatives are revolving around master data management.”

Major Leadership Challenges For 2023

These include concerns about economic conditions, cost controls and access to capital, talent retention, and other workforce issues.

“Economies are going to continue to fluctuate, so prudent spending is a must,” notes Tilk.

Prudent spending is closely related to another challenge: workforce issues. Retaining top talent is always vital, but a new post-Covid challenge has to do with the uncertainties, for many organizations, around office real estate.

“Many corporate leaders are having to rethink real estate,” Tilk says. “For the last few years we’ve been working remote. Now companies are bringing workers back into the office on a part- or full-time basis and they’re also reevaluating what they’re going to do. Do they shrink their footprint or do they redefine their office spaces?”

Transformation & Technology Priorities

Throughout the webinar, Fatibene and Tilk examine other trends—in transformation and technology—that organizations will focus on in 2023.

According to Fatibene, keys to transformation success will be process optimization, talent upskilling, and finance agility. “Process optimization should focus on improving the ways we interact with people, processes, and data, and how to drive value through improved, organization-wide processes,” he says.

Talent upskilling is essential for all businesses today, and finance agility comes about when finance can free up capacity in order to better partner with business-unit peers.

Other BlackLine Predictions for 2023

These are several other findings by BlackLine as we look ahead to the rest of 2023. In addition to predicting increasing emphasis on hyper-automation, the webinar hosts point to a growing need for cyber security and autonomous technologies.

• Cybersecurity will be forefront. “This is more critical than ever because of today’s often-distributed workforces and the high costs of security breaches,” Fatibene notes. “I saw a recent statistic that said the average cost of a data breach is $4 million.”
• Autonomous technology—organizations will adopt newer technologies that can help provide personal insights to employees who might otherwise not have the time or ability to discover them through manual research.

Ultimately, the webinar points out that the top-level key to success will, as always, be finding ways to make the most out of that most precious resource—time.

“Time is limited—you can’t make more time,” says Fatibene. Because of this, notes Tilk, it’s important that people constantly examine the work they’re doing and look for ways to do it more efficiently.”

Throughout the next year, it will be vital to find the best technologies that can help workers and organizations do just that, by putting their time to the best possible use.

Watch the on-demand webinar to:

• Identify 2023 critical trends impacting finance and accounting
• Explain how technology improves accuracy, saves time, and benefits everyone, especially during uncertain times
• Identify leading practices for optimizing and automating despite disruption

This blog post was originally published on the BlackLine blog.

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