Case Study: Dow Chemical achieves accelerated financial close, enhanced finance controls, and automated reconciliations with BlackLine

Discovers Formula for Accelerated Financial Close, Enhanced Finance Controls, and Automation

The Dow Chemical Company, a global manufacturer with thousands of legal entities, was struggling with a labor-intensive financial close after acquiring Rohm and Haas and while migrating legacy SAP systems. Nearly 1,000 staff prepared about 250,000 quarterly account reconciliations using inconsistent, spreadsheet-based processes that caused delays, errors and difficulty locating supporting documentation.

Dow implemented BlackLine’s cloud-based Financial Close Suite (with an SAP connector) to automate reconciliations and variance analysis, preserving existing policies while standardizing workflows. The solution delivered a centralized 24/7 repository, auto-certified more than 50% of key accounts (60% overall), improved auditability and transparency, sped up close activities, freed teams for higher-value analysis and supported the SAP ERP rollout—efforts that earned Dow a Ventana Research technology award.

DOW

Pat Withrow

Accounting Director