BlackLine Launches AI-Enabled Intercompany Accounting Tool

BlackLine, a cloud finance software company, has begun the rollout of its artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled intercompany accounting capabilities. 

This new solution, known as Intercompany Predictive Guidance, aims to prevent transaction failures, reduce resource consumption and enhance efficiency throughout the entire transaction lifecycle, the company said in a Tuesday (Sept. 12) press release.

Intercompany transactions can be intricate, involving millions of transactions each month of significant volumes, often exceeding a company’s reported revenue, according to the press release. These transactions frequently span multiple geographical borders, currencies and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Due to their complexity and potential data quality issues, intercompany transaction failures can lead to delays in billing, invoicing, reconciliation and settlement processes.

BlackLine’s Intercompany Predictive Guidance leverages AI and machine learning (ML) models to analyze an organization’s transactional data, the release said. By harnessing the power of AI, this functionality can predict potential issues and risks to financial close processes and data accuracy before transactions are finalized. It identifies high-risk transactions, explains risk factors, suggests immediate corrections, and provides guidance for future transactions.

By utilizing Intercompany Predictive Guidance, companies can significantly reduce or eliminate transaction failures, resulting in substantial time and cost savings, per the release.

“I’m incredibly excited to be able to offer our intercompany customers this industry-first functionality,” Therese Tucker, BlackLine’s founder and co-CEO, said in the release. “Intercompany Predictive Guidance leverages the power of AI to help solve the real-life challenges these teams face daily, making them less reactive and freeing them up to focus on strategic work.”

Initially, Intercompany Predictive Guidance will be available for BlackLine’s Intercompany Non-Trade solution, which automates services-related transactions, according to the press release. BlackLine plans to make the solution generally available in 2024. However, the company is currently offering early adoption to interested customers.

The launch of this product comes about a year after BlackLine added a Customer Attractiveness Scoring feature. That feature uses insights gleaned from the cash collection and management process to help companies identify customers who are at risk of delaying or defaulting on payments.

With these insights, companies can both reduce risk and identify revenue opportunities, the company said at the time.