Financial close software leader BlackLine Systems will be presenting this week at the SSON (Shared Services & Outsourcing Network)Finance Transformation Summit 2014 in London, taking place from Monday to Wednesday,  10 to12 February, at the Hilton Syon Park London.  BlackLine Systems will be joined by Andrew Bowie, regional financial controller for the UK and Ireland at Tyco, the world’s largest fire protection and security company, for a client case study highlighting the benefits the $10 billion public company has realised since automating critical accounting processes with BlackLine’s flagship Financial Close Suite.

Board members at enterprises of all sizes expect enhanced delivery and improved decision-making to drive growth and minimise risk, driven by a proactive Finance function.  Contemporary Finance functions offer the same cost-control and risk management as their outdated counterparts, but are faster, commercially focused and more dynamic – adding value by identifying future opportunities, streamlining process and operating costs whilst simultaneously enabling a commercially focused planning and analysis function.

SSON’s 2014 Finance Transformation Summit will help Finance directors and other senior accountancy managers navigate the unknown with the best tools possible to achieve tangible results.

Susan Parcells, CPA, BlackLine Systems director of Finance Transformation, will lead a session at this year’s conference entitled “The Road to Reconciliation:  Best Practices for Achieving Balance Sheet Integrity.”  Andrew Bowie of Tyco will share his insight on how companies operating in an outsourced or shared services environment can communicate better, improve efficiencies, increase productivity, reduce bottom line costs and ultimately ‘achieve balance sheet integrity’ by implementing best practices such as automating traditionally manual account reconciliation and financial close processes.

With the number of companies moving to shared services and/or outsourced finance environments (often overseas) continuing to increase, it is increasingly critical that proper controls are in place.  Accuracy, visibility and timeliness of the account reconciliation and financial close processes, as well as the need for real-time access to information with clear, streamlined communications between all parties involved, is more important than ever before.

Session attendees will leave with insight into how they can:

• Implement technology to gain visibility into and control over the status, progress, exceptions and risk points around the financial close

• Use standardised templates to help improve the quality of reconciliations

• Create automated workflow to ensure financial close tasks are assigned, prepared and reviewed by the right person at the right time

• Query real-time dashboards and reports to gain insight into the status of reconciliations

• Set up and use an online document repository to store and protect all supporting documents associated with reconciliations

• Improve the accuracy and timeliness of compliance reporting

• Manage compliance while servicing multiple locations, worldwide

In addition to presenting, BlackLine Systems also is a Silver sponsor of the event.  For more information, contact [email protected].

About SSON
The Shared Services & Outsourcing Network (SSON), which puts on several conferences throughout the year, is the largest and most established community of shared services and outsourcing professionals in the world.

About BlackLine Systems
BlackLine Systems was the first to develop and offer a commercially available Balance Sheet Account Reconciliation solution.  An experienced provider of software to companies from the Fortune 100 to beyond the Fortune 1,000, BlackLine provides quick-to-implement, scalable and easy-to-use applications that automate the entire financial close process to help improve financial controls for companies of all sizes.  With more than 85,000 users in over 100 countries, BlackLine software applications complement existing Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Governance Risk and Compliance (GRC) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.

Though ERP-agnostic, the BlackLine Financial Close Suite for SAP® Solutions is an SAP-endorsed business solution – joining the ranks of fewer than 40 other software offerings globally that are endorsed by the enterprise application software leader.  BlackLine also is an SAP Gold Partner.

BlackLine offers clients its enterprise-class financial software in a simple and secure SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) platform.  With a proven track record and a commitment to customer success, BlackLine seeks to reduce the burden the financial close places on accounting and finance professionals.

BlackLine headquarters are in Los Angeles, with offices in Atlanta, Chicago, London, Melbourne, New York City and Sydney to serve the company’s growing global client base.  For more information, please visit www.blackline.com.