Case Study: Finning achieves a 50% faster month-end close and frees staff for strategic work with BlackLine

Reducing Close Time by 50% & Freeing Resources for More Strategic Work

Finning, the world’s largest Caterpillar dealer with global operations across multiple ERPs, faced a slow, manual month‑end close process built on SharePoint and disparate repositories that made standardization and controls difficult. Leadership prioritized a lower‑effort, more efficient close to improve accuracy and free up finance staff for strategic work.

Finning implemented BlackLine (adopted in 2017) to centralize accounting information and automate reconciliations, transaction matching, journal entries, and task management, enabling consistent controls across regions. The result: a 50% reduction in close time (from seven to 3.5 days, targeting three), automated repetitive work, 40% of accounts auto‑certified, and staff refocused on higher‑value analysis.

Finning

Jorge Lopez-Basulto

Global Lead Enterprise Support Manager