Accounting
New BlackLine AR Intelligence Optimizes Working Capital
Managing debtors and the overall assessment of customer payment behaviors has never been as critical as it is in today’s economic climate. Businesses need to make decisions based on accurate, real-time intelligence. BlackLine AR Intelligence takes ...
Apr. 09, 2021
Accounting automation software leader BlackLine, Inc. (Nasdaq: BL) has unveiled BlackLine AR Intelligence, the latest offering in its portfolio of accounts receivable (AR) automation solutions designed to complement and enhance its broader financial operations management platform. BlackLine AR Intelligence enables customers to manage financial risks and opportunities by providing access to real-time, actionable data to help them understand their customers’ financial behaviors and use the information to impact strategic and operational decision-making.
Managing debtors and the overall assessment of customer payment behaviors has never been as critical as it is in today’s economic climate. Businesses need to make decisions based on accurate, real-time intelligence. BlackLine AR Intelligence takes the strategic value of BlackLine’s AI-powered Cash Application solution to the next level by harnessing real-time data and combining it with powerful analytics to improve critical decision-making across the enterprise.
“Now more than ever, business resilience and cash management is top of the agenda. BlackLine AR Intelligence provides our customers with a deep understanding of the financial risks and opportunities within their customer bases, unlocking data either previously not available to them or that took days and weeks to generate manually,” said Kevin Kimber, managing director of BlackLine’s global accounts receivables business unit. “BlackLine AR Intelligence delivers real-time credit, debt and sales insights that benefit not only the Accounts Receivable, Credit Management and Order-to-Cash departments, but other senior stakeholders such as the CFO, Office of the Controller, Treasury and even the CRO/Sales team, enabling companies to reduce risk, improve forecasting, optimize working capital and grow revenues by analyzing precise customer payment and credit behaviors.”
More than $187 billion of payments were applied through BlackLine Cash Application in 2020. By adding BlackLine AR Intelligence, customers gain critical business insights to manage risk, cash flow and collections, as well as real-time analysis and reports. Pre-configured, interactive dashboards display key information such as:
Customer Behavior Insights: Sales and payment performance data, such as invoiced sales by month and cash by month, and the correlation/variance between the two.
Payment Terms v. Cash Collected: Ability to track and measure payment terms, outstanding balances, cash collected and debt positions across the customer base and see how customers actually pay against those terms.
Payment Forecasting: Ability to forecast weekly collections and measure accuracy by using real-time customer payment behavior data.
Sales Ledger Analysis: An analysis of the relationship between volume of customers and value of debt outstanding, e.g. debt by value, count of invoices by value, count of customers by value.
Bank Utilization: Ability to see customer accounts linked by the same bank details or sales ledger accounts linked by payee details to see how customers are paying and for which accounts, leading to a better understanding of overall exposure/risk.
Days Sales Outstanding (DSO): Automated calculations around the time it takes to collect payment, such as cash collected last month, customers by balance, customers with the most debt and debtor day value by month.
“BlackLine AR Intelligence is a natural complement to our Cash Application solution, delivering on our vision to be the most indispensable platform for the controller,” added Mr. Kimber. “Coupled with the ability to link everything back to our market-leading financial close platform for currency adjustments, intercompany cash, bad debt reserves and suspense accounts, we are redefining the way AR work gets done and unlocking new strategic value for our customers.”
Here’s what customers are saying about their experience using BlackLine AR Intelligence:
- “A strategic review and a dynamic approach to collections. Have not seen any other solution to get to this level of data.”
- “Enhances operational performance to see problems which would normally be overlooked because we don’t have the data.”
- “Very powerful and easy to use; of great value to us, particularly from a management perspective.”
- “Love the fact that we evaluate what is happening across our customer base in depth and quickly.”
- “The real power is having all of the data at my fingertips rather than spending hours creating reports.”
Following the Oct. 2nd, 2020 announcement of its acquisition of Rimilia, BlackLine is actively expanding its capabilities in the AR automation space. BlackLine AR Intelligence is designed to be used alongside BlackLine Cash Application and is one of several AR automation offerings to come. To learn more, register for the upcoming Modern Accounting Summits and attend a series of sessions dedicated to AR automation, Cash Application and AR Intelligence.