Jemena has bedded down the first 10 use cases for automation in its month-end finance processes, with a further 25 use cases now being implemented.
The electricity network asset owner, whose operations are managed by Zinfra, is using software from BlackLine to underpin the finance automation work.
It has been using BlackLine since 2015, albeit previously for account reconciliations and reporting integrity purposes.
The expansion to month-end journals is intended to reduce manually intensive month-end processing. The company said it has cut “over 24 hours in manual processing” from introducing automation to “10 key journals” and, specifically, by “automating high-complexity, high-effort journal entries”.
In finance, journals contain detailed records of business transactions.
Jemena cited the example of a “WIP journal” which documents work-in-progress that is yet to be billed. It said that the journal “was previously calculated using a spreadsheet with more than 200,000 rows of data, numerous pivot tables, links to external files, and manual steps”.
Using the revamped process, “data from multiple sources is loaded into BlackLine and automatically matched if it meets pre-set criteria to be classified as WIP,” it said.
“Unmatched transactions are then created to be posted, and reconciling items are sent to the related account reconciliation.”
In addition to now implementing 25 more automations, Jemena said its finance teams are being encouraged “to identify further automation opportunities across the business.”
Jemena is working with Deloitte and BlackLine on the project.
