Pembina Pipeline Corporation: Journey with BlackLine
Project overview and objectives
In 2023, Pembina Pipeline Corporation, a leading energy transportation and midstream service provider in North America, identified challenges in their monthly financial close processes.
With an eye on two software vendors, they engaged Clearsulting for a 2-month blueprint. Their goals were to thoroughly understand process pain points, critical software capabilities, and areas that deviated from leading practice—ultimately landing on BlackLine as the software of choice.
What we did
To help align on a roadmap for improvement, the Clearsulting team:
- Conducted several process interviews spanning 6 business units and 8 corporate accounting teams, identifying BlackLine as the preferred solution
- Collaborated closely with the Pembina team to streamline their close process by automating SAP S/4 HANA balance feeds for their general ledger, subledgers, and bank balances into BlackLine
- Defined a risk ranking framework that prioritized key accounts and decreased the overall frequency of reconciliation
Impact
When all was said and done, Pembina:
- Achieved an initial 37% automation rate at go-live
- Grouped 6,500 accounts into fewer than 1,000 reconciliations
- Closed over 80,000 general ledger account extensions
- Rectified completeness gaps by cleansing the balance sheet
- Deployed Blackline’s SAP Open Item Clearing for 180 reconciliations.
While technology acted as the enabler, it was Pembina’s internal approach to transformation that cemented success for years to come. Read the case study to see what set them apart.
