Your Record to Report - Period Close & Reconciliation Data Template

This attribute describes a single step or milestone in the record-to-report process, such as 'Reconciliation Prepared' or 'Adjusting Journal Posted'. These events are chronologically ordered to reconstruct the process flow for each financial period.

Analyzing the sequence and frequency of activities helps identify the actual process path, deviations from the standard procedure, and bottlenecks where the process gets stuck. It is fundamental for creating the process map and calculating key performance indicators.

It forms the backbone of the process map, allowing for the visualization and analysis of the process flow, variants, and exceptions.

This is typically derived from event logs, task statuses, or audit trails within various BlackLine modules like Tasks, Journals, and Account Reconciliations.

The Financial Period groups all activities related to closing and reconciling accounts for that specific reporting cycle. For example, '2023-01' would represent all closing activities for January 2023.

In process mining, this attribute is essential for analyzing the end-to-end duration of the period close process. It allows for comparisons of cycle times across different periods, helping to identify trends, seasonal variations, and the impact of process improvements over time.

This is the core identifier that connects all related closing and reconciliation activities, enabling a complete view of each period's process flow and performance.

This is typically derived from the reporting period context within BlackLine's Period Close or Reconciliation modules. It may be a combination of year and month fields.

EventTime provides the precise date and time that a specific step in the period close process began. This timestamp is crucial for sequencing events correctly and for calculating durations between different process steps.

In analysis, this attribute is used to build the chronological event log for each case. It is the basis for calculating all time-related metrics, such as cycle times, wait times, and processing times, which are essential for identifying delays and inefficiencies.

This timestamp is essential for ordering events, discovering the process flow, and calculating all duration-based performance metrics.

This corresponds to the creation date, start date, or status change timestamp in BlackLine's task, reconciliation, or journal entry records.

This attribute indicates the last time the dataset was updated. It provides context on the freshness of the data being analyzed, ensuring users are aware of how current the process insights are.

This is important for dashboard consumers to understand the timeliness of the analysis. It helps manage expectations and confirms that decisions are being made on sufficiently recent data.

It informs users about the recency of the data, which is critical for making timely and relevant business decisions based on the analysis.

This timestamp is generated and stored during the data extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) process.

This attribute identifies the origin of the process data. For this view, it will consistently be 'BlackLine', but in a broader context involving multiple systems, it helps differentiate data sources.

In a multi-system analysis, this field is critical for understanding data lineage and for system-specific performance comparisons. Even in a single-system view, it provides important context for data governance and management.

It provides crucial context about the data's origin, which is essential for data governance, validation, and integration with other systems.

This is typically a static value added during the data transformation process to label the source of the records.

The Company Code represents a specific legal entity within the organization. Financial closing activities are often performed separately for each company code before being consolidated.

This attribute is critical for analyzing the period close process at the entity level. It allows for performance comparisons between different legal entities, which is especially important for the Intercompany Reconciliation Duration analysis. It helps pinpoint which entities have the most complex or inefficient closing processes.

It allows for process analysis to be segmented by legal entity, which is crucial for identifying entity-specific bottlenecks and performance issues.

Available as a standard field on most financial transactions, including journal entries and reconciliations, within BlackLine and the source ERP.

The Department attribute indicates the business unit, such as 'Corporate Accounting' or 'Internal Audit', responsible for an activity. This information is often derived from user profiles or the nature of the task itself.

This dimension is valuable for comparing process performance across different parts of the organization. It helps identify which departments are most efficient, which may need additional resources during the close period, and where cross-departmental handoffs are causing delays.

It enables performance comparison between different business units and is crucial for department-level workload and bottleneck analysis.

This information can be sourced from user profile data linked to the ResponsibleUser or from properties of the task or GL account itself within BlackLine or an associated ERP system.

EventEndTime provides the precise date and time that a specific task was finished. It is used in conjunction with the StartTime to calculate the processing time for individual activities.

In analysis, the EndTime is crucial for calculating how long each step takes. This helps pinpoint which activities are consuming the most time within the overall process, forming the basis for bottleneck analysis and resource allocation assessments.

It enables the calculation of activity processing times, which is fundamental for identifying bottlenecks and measuring operational efficiency.

Corresponds to the completion date, last modified date, or a specific status change timestamp in BlackLine's task, reconciliation, or journal records.

This attribute identifies the specific account from the chart of accounts that is being reconciled or adjusted. It provides a detailed financial context for the process activities.

Analyzing by GL Account is vital for the Manual Journal Adjustment Trends dashboard, as it helps identify which accounts require the most manual intervention. It is also used to detect rework, where multiple adjustments or reconciliation attempts occur for the same account within a single period.

It provides financial context, helping to pinpoint which accounts are prone to errors, require frequent adjustments, or cause delays in the close.

This is a primary field in BlackLine's Account Reconciliations and Journal Entry modules.

This attribute captures the state of a reconciliation at a specific point in time, for example, 'Not Started', 'In Progress', 'Certified', or 'Rejected'. It provides a snapshot of progress and outcomes for individual reconciliations.

Analyzing by status is essential for the Reconciliation Status Breakdown dashboard, allowing managers to quickly see how many reconciliations are pending, complete, or require attention. Tracking the transitions between statuses helps identify rework loops and delays in the review and approval cycle.

It provides a clear view of reconciliation progress and outcomes, helping to identify backlogs and track compliance with procedures.

Directly available from the status field of records in the BlackLine Account Reconciliations module.

This attribute identifies the individual responsible for executing a specific task, such as preparing a reconciliation or posting a journal entry. It can be a user name, employee ID, or email address.

Analyzing data by Responsible User is key to understanding workload distribution, individual performance, and training needs. It helps answer questions about who the top performers are, whether work is allocated evenly, and where rework or errors are most frequently occurring.

It is essential for workload distribution analysis, identifying bottlenecks caused by specific user groups, and assessing team performance.

Found in fields such as 'Assigned To', 'Completed By', 'Preparer', 'Certifier', or 'Approver' within BlackLine modules.

This attribute captures the financial impact of a manual adjustment. It can be represented as a single value or as separate debit and credit amounts.

Analyzing the value of adjustments, in addition to their volume, provides a more complete picture of their significance. Large or frequent adjustments for specific accounts or departments can signal material financial reporting risks or significant upstream process failures that need to be addressed.

It quantifies the financial impact of manual adjustments, helping to prioritize investigations into areas with high-value changes.

Available in amount fields within the BlackLine Journals module.

This attribute specifies the currency of the AdjustmentAmount. In multinational organizations, journal entries can be in various local currencies.

Currency is a necessary contextual attribute for any financial amount. It ensures that monetary values are interpreted correctly and allows for proper aggregation and comparison, often requiring conversion to a standard reporting currency for analysis.

Provides essential context for any monetary values, ensuring accurate interpretation and enabling correct currency conversion for reporting.

Typically located alongside amount fields in the BlackLine Journals module, or on the properties of the associated Company Code.

This flag differentiates between tasks executed automatically by the system (e.g., auto-certification of low-risk reconciliations) and those performed manually by a user. This is key to understanding the level of automation in the close process.

Analyzing this attribute helps measure the impact of automation initiatives. It can be used to compare the speed and consistency of automated tasks versus manual ones and to identify opportunities for further automation to improve efficiency and reduce human error.

It helps measure the level of automation in the process and identify opportunities to automate manual tasks, thereby increasing efficiency.

This can be derived by checking if the ResponsibleUser is a system or service account, or from specific flags within the task properties in BlackLine.

This boolean attribute is derived by comparing the actual completion time of the 'Period Closed' activity with the 'TargetCompletionDate' for that financial period. It provides a simple, clear indicator of compliance with deadlines.

This flag is the basis for calculating the 'On-Time Period Close Rate' KPI. It allows for easy filtering and visualization of on-time versus late periods, helping to quickly identify periods that missed their deadlines and require further investigation.

This simplifies performance tracking by clearly flagging cases that failed to meet deadlines, directly supporting compliance and SLA reporting.

Calculated by comparing the timestamp of the final 'Period Closed' activity to the 'TargetCompletionDate' attribute. This is done within the process mining tool.

This flag is set to true for activities that indicate a process is repeating steps unnecessarily. For example, a 'Reconciliation Rejected' event followed by another 'Reconciliation Prepared' event for the same reconciliation would be marked as rework.

Identifying rework is critical for uncovering process inefficiencies and quality issues. The 'Reconciliation Rework Rate' KPI is calculated based on this attribute, highlighting areas where work is not being done correctly the first time, leading to wasted effort and delays.

It flags inefficient process loops and repeated work, helping to quantify wasted effort and identify root causes of quality issues.

This is typically calculated by the process mining tool's algorithms, which detect repeated sequences of activities within the same case, often involving the same ReconciliationId or GLAccount.

The Journal ID is a unique key for each manual adjusting journal entry created and posted within BlackLine. It ensures that each journal can be tracked individually from creation to posting.

This ID is essential for the Manual Journal Adjustment Trends dashboard. It enables counting the precise number of manual adjustments and allows analysts to drill down to investigate the details of specific entries that may indicate underlying data or process issues.

It uniquely identifies each manual journal entry, which is crucial for counting adjustments and investigating the root cause of high adjustment volumes.

This is a system-generated unique identifier for each entry in the BlackLine Journals module.

Processing Time, also known as cycle time, is the elapsed time from when an activity begins (StartTime) to when it ends (EndTime). It measures the active work time for a task.

This is a fundamental metric in process mining, used to identify the most time-consuming steps in the process. Analyzing processing time by activity, user, or department helps pinpoint bottlenecks and areas where process improvements could have the greatest impact on shortening the overall close cycle.

This calculated metric is crucial for identifying the most time-consuming activities, which are often the primary targets for process improvement.

Calculated by subtracting EventTime (StartTime) from EventEndTime. This is typically done within the process mining tool.

The Reconciliation ID is a unique key assigned to each reconciliation performed for a specific GL account within a financial period. This allows for precise tracking of each individual reconciliation's journey through the process.

In analysis, this ID helps to distinguish between different reconciliations that may occur for the same account over time. It is crucial for detailed drill-downs, investigating specific issues, and accurately tracking the status and history of each item.

It provides a unique key for tracking individual reconciliation items, enabling detailed analysis and drill-down into specific problem areas.

This is a system-generated unique identifier for each reconciliation record in the BlackLine Account Reconciliations module.

This attribute classifies the type of reconciliation being performed. This is important because different types of reconciliations may have different levels of complexity, risk, and expected completion times.

Using this attribute allows for segmenting the analysis to compare the performance and challenges associated with different reconciliation categories. For example, it can help determine if intercompany reconciliations are taking significantly longer than standard balance sheet reconciliations.

It allows for segmented analysis of different reconciliation categories, which often have varying complexity and risk profiles.

This can be derived from the properties of the GL account or the reconciliation template settings in BlackLine.

This attribute represents the official deadline for completing the period close process. It serves as a benchmark against which the actual completion time is measured.

This date is essential for calculating the 'On-Time Period Close Rate' KPI. By comparing the actual completion timestamp of the 'Period Closed' activity with this target date, the analysis can flag periods that were late and measure the extent of the delay, which is critical for compliance and reporting.

It is the benchmark for measuring on-time performance and is essential for calculating compliance-related KPIs like the On-Time Period Close Rate.

This date is typically set in the period close calendar or task management settings within BlackLine.