When a company with some of the world’s biggest consumer brands needed to overhaul how it handled millions of intercompany transactions across three ERP landscapes—SAP ECC, SAP S/4HANA, and JD Edwards—it turned to BlackLine. And when it came to making that integration work, it turned to Pivot.
The consumer goods company’s finance teams were manually reconciling stock and non-stock intercompany transactions across global markets. The volumes were huge. The processes were slow. And the risk of errors was growing by the month.
For basic journal entries, the client had begun using BlackLine, for inter-company transfer agreements. But it needed more. Specifically, full integration of three major ERP systems using BlackLine InterCompany Hub (ICH).
Pivot were brought in to lead the SAP ECC integration.
The new process was designed around three modules:
Create replaced the consumer goods company’s legacy processes for generating non-stock intercompany transactions, such as internal recharges for services like advertising
Balance & Resolve matched intercompany transactions – stock and non-stock, to smooth dispute management and support automated month-end reconciliation
Net & Settle integrated with the multinational’s Treasury Management system,
and reconciled settlements.
SAP’s standard tools weren’t built to handle the volume the company was
dealing with. The BSEG table – SAP’s primary database table for storing
individual line items from all financial transactions – was simply too large. Full-
year extracts caused memory issues and system timeouts.
“We had to download data month by month,” said Pivot’s Developer. “Otherwise, the system would crash.”
Pivot built custom logic to enrich the extract program and added additional fields requested by the client into BlackLine.
Then came a new problem. A BlackLine connector upgrade was missing key functionality, right in the middle of testing. Instead of waiting for a fix, Pivot took the initiative and created a clever solution that maintained the core integrity of the
system.
“We saved days of effort on every round of testing,” Pivot’s Project Manager said. “I’m proud of that.”
What made it work? A lean, highly-trusted team.
“Providing in-depth SAP knowledge to finance stakeholders in a clear, non-technical way enabled us to make decisions quickly. This built strong relationships with the company’s business stakeholders and the wider project team,” said Pivot’s manager. “Another big help was having Pivot onshore,” she said. “With offshore developers, you’re raising tickets and waiting days. The Pivot Developer and I work side-by-side every day. We spotted issues, fixed them and tested together. It was fast and effective.”
“I’ve been able to resolve every issue Pivot’s project manager has given me,” said Pivot’s developer. “That’s what happens when you’re embedded and focused.”
While other streams dealt with delays and resourcing issues, the ECC stream led by Pivot stayed on track—and pulled ahead. The Pivot project manager’s advice to other clients is plain. “Work with people who are hands-on and on the ground. It makes a massive difference.”
