KPMG LLP and BlackLine, Inc. (Nasdaq: BL), a leading provider of financial automation software solutions, today announced at InTheBlack 2017 an alliance to empower finance and accounting (F&A) teams to deliver real-time financial intelligence to executives and add strategic value to the enterprise.

The combination of BlackLine’s cloud platform for automation and analytics with KPMG’s finance process enablement and automation vision will provide clients with financial solutions that can be implemented into their business processes to help improve staff efficiencies, shift focus from transactional to analytical, and align finance strategies with those of the business.

“With intensifying global business model disruption, a rapidly changing regulatory landscape, the growing complexity of financial processes, and increased demand for clear and actionable financial reporting, F&A must respond with using technology as a basis to move forward the finance of the future,” said Ralph Canter, KPMG Managing Director of Financial Management Advisory.

Canter adds that as digital transformation becomes a heightened priority, KPMG and BlackLine can support an automation of finance roadmap that will ultimately move finance professionals out of transaction processing and into more valuable operational and strategic decision support.

As a leader in providing finance governance, compliance, controls and services, KPMG helps clients improve end-to-end financial reporting processes by enhancing real-time visibility, simplifying workflow, and reducing the time required to execute external and managerial reporting. KPMG has deep experience with enabling technologies geared toward the financial close and reporting processes that can help companies standardize on leading practices.

While enterprise resource planning (ERP) and business intelligence (BI) systems collect, track and analyze business data, they do not automate many critical F&A processes. BlackLine’s platform, which integrates with more than 40 ERP systems, replaces manual spreadsheet-based processes and features, streamlining accounting workflows and enabling accuracy and compliance auditability. The suite of applications supports account reconciliation, journal entry, task management, consolidation integrity management, intercompany management, transaction matching, and variance analysis.

“We’ve completed many successful projects with KPMG over the years where their in-depth knowledge and hands-on advisory services have helped us meet the requirements of global customers,” said Therese Tucker, CEO of BlackLine. “KPMG has been a terrific partner in that they have been very vocal about the potential they see for BlackLine, as well as the direction they think we should take to get there. They see the broader vision of what BlackLine can do to transform Finance & Accounting organizations.”