BlackLine Financial Close and Reconciliation Training Course

Course overview

Month-end close often depends on spreadsheets, email chasers, manually assembled evidence and reconciliations whose status is difficult to see until a deadline is at risk. Finance teams using BlackLine need more than basic navigation: they need to configure and operate close tasks, account reconciliations, matching rules and review workflows in a way that produces defensible evidence for controllers, auditors and management. This course addresses the practical gap between having the platform available and using it to shorten close cycles, expose exceptions early and enforce consistent controls.

Participants work through the BlackLine close-management process from task-list design through reconciliation preparation, certification, matching and reporting. They learn how to build Financial Close Management task lists, assign owners and approvers, manage dependencies and evidence, configure Account Reconciliations templates and risk ratings, prepare reconciliations, investigate exceptions, and route items through the approval workflow. The course also covers Transaction Matching configuration, journal-entry workflow concepts, dashboards, reports and operational metrics that reveal overdue tasks, aged reconciling items and control bottlenecks.

Instructor demonstrations are followed by guided configuration labs and a five-day finance-close case study. Participants use a BlackLine training environment to build a controlled close calendar, create account-reconciliation profiles, prepare reconciliations and define matching logic for sample bank and subledger data. They leave with a completed BlackLine close and reconciliation design pack: a task-list blueprint, reconciliation profile and template specifications, matching-rule design, exception-escalation workflow and implementation action plan that can be adapted for their own entity or process.

The course is designed for intermediate finance professionals who participate in close, reconciliation, controllership, shared-services or BlackLine administration activities and need to improve both platform use and close-process control.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Configure Financial Close Management task lists with owners, due dates, dependencies, evidence requirements and approvers
• Build Account Reconciliations profiles, templates, risk ratings and certification workflows for balance-sheet accounts
• Prepare and certify reconciliations using supporting documentation, ageing analysis and reconciling-item explanations
• Design Transaction Matching rules, match groups and exception queues for high-volume financial transactions
• Apply BlackLine workflow controls to route reviews, escalations, rejections and remediation actions
• Analyse close dashboards and operational reports to identify overdue tasks, aged items and approval bottlenecks
• Define control evidence and audit-trail requirements for a BlackLine-enabled financial close
• Produce a BlackLine close and reconciliation design pack for an assigned finance process

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Financial Controllers — who need reliable close status, review evidence and balance-sheet accountability
• Record-to-Report Managers — who standardise close activities across entities, teams and shared-service centres
• Accountants and Senior Accountants — who prepare, explain and certify account reconciliations
• Financial Close Managers — who coordinate deadlines, dependencies, approvals and exception escalation
• BlackLine Administrators — who configure workflows, profiles, user responsibilities and reporting
• Internal Control and Internal Audit Professionals — who assess close controls and require traceable supporting evidence

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should understand the month-end close cycle, double-entry accounting, balance-sheet account reconciliations, adjusting journals and the purpose of management review controls. Experience preparing or reviewing reconciliations in a spreadsheet, ERP or shared-service environment is expected. Familiarity with SAP S/4HANA, Oracle or another ERP is useful because examples refer to source-system balances and transaction data, but no programming, API development or prior BlackLine configuration experience is required. Participants should be comfortable working with account balances, ageing items and basic Excel-style data analysis.

Training methodology

The course combines short instructor-led explanations with live BlackLine demonstrations, guided configuration labs and a continuing multi-entity close case. Participants build task lists, assign workflow roles, configure reconciliation profiles, prepare sample reconciliations and test transaction-matching rules against supplied finance data. Small-group review sessions assess incomplete support, aged exceptions and rejected reconciliations as a controller or auditor would. On day five, each participant consolidates their work into a close and reconciliation design pack and identifies implementation priorities for their own process.

Course outline

Day 1: BlackLine close architecture and task management

• Financial close pain points and BlackLine operating-model concepts
• BlackLine navigation, roles, entities and user-responsibility model
• Financial Close Management task-list structure and task types
• Close calendars, due dates, recurrence patterns and period controls
• Task ownership, preparer-reviewer assignments and approval routing
• Task dependencies, predecessor logic and critical-path management
• Evidence attachments, task comments and audit-trail requirements

Workshop: Participants configure a month-end close task list for a multi-entity finance team and produce a responsibility and dependency map.

Day 2: Account Reconciliations design and preparation

• Account Reconciliations architecture, profiles and reconciliation types
• Risk-based account classification and frequency selection
• Reconciliation templates, attributes and required supporting fields
• Balance imports, source-system data and period-balance validation
• Preparations, explanations and supporting-document standards
• Reconciling items, ageing, action plans and clearance tracking
• Certification status, reviewer sign-off and rejection handling

Workshop: Participants create account profiles and prepare two balance-sheet reconciliations, including support, explanations and aged reconciling items.

Day 3: Transaction Matching and exception control

• Transaction Matching use cases for bank, subledger and intercompany processes
• Data-source structure, transaction types and matching populations
• Match groups, one-to-one and one-to-many matching scenarios
• Rule logic, tolerances, date windows and reference-field criteria
• Auto-match review and unmatched-transaction work queues
• Exception investigation, adjustment ownership and escalation paths
• Matching control metrics and reconciliation completion linkage

Workshop: Participants configure matching logic for a bank-clearing case and produce an exception-resolution queue with assigned actions.

Day 4: Workflow, controls and close performance reporting

• BlackLine workflow states, approvals, delegations and escalations
• Segregation of duties in preparer, reviewer and administrator roles
• Control narratives, evidence criteria and audit-ready documentation
• Journal Entries workflow concepts and approval-control touchpoints
• Close dashboards, task status views and reconciliation ageing reports
• Root-cause analysis of late tasks, rejected reconciliations and recurring exceptions
• KPI design for close duration, on-time completion and exception ageing

Workshop: Participants review a simulated close dashboard, identify control failures and produce a corrective-action report for the controller.

Day 5: Operational deployment and process improvement

• Translating current-state close procedures into a BlackLine design
• Account and task inventory methods for implementation scoping
• Profile governance, template ownership and configuration change control
• Data-quality checks for ERP balances and transaction feeds
• User adoption, role-based training and close-period support model
• Phased deployment planning, pilot criteria and success measures
• Close and reconciliation design-pack presentation and peer review

Workshop: Participants complete and present a BlackLine close and reconciliation design pack with a 90-day implementation action plan.

Tools & standards covered

BlackLine Financial Close Management, BlackLine Account Reconciliations, BlackLine Transaction Matching, BlackLine Journal Entries

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions