40+ Bank Reconciliations Automated Inside BlackLine

The Challenge

At a Fortune Global 500 manufacturer, one accountant spent a full day every cycle on more than 40 bank accounts: open each bank statement PDF, read the ending balance, key it into the BlackLine reconciliation, compare it to the book balance, and close the item. The work was pure relay, the same number read in one place and typed into another, forty times over, with the close waiting on it. The statements came from 15 to 20 different banks, each in its own PDF layout, so there was no single place the balance sat.

Our Approach

We automated BlackLine itself rather than working around it. First the reading problem: we wrote pattern matching for each bank's statement layout, using AI to work out the patterns for 15 to 20 banks in a fraction of the usual time, so the ending balance is read reliably from every statement. Then the automation enters that balance into the matching BlackLine reconciliation, compares, and closes the item when it ties. Anything that does not tie stays with a person. Nothing about the control changed: the same approvals, the same reviewers, the same audit trail, in the reconciliation tool the team already owned.

The Outcome