In the fast-paced world of Fortune 1000 enterprises, the reliance on hundreds of SaaS applications is undeniable. These applications are crucial for boosting operational efficiency, but when they operate independently, they can create chaos. At Nakisa, we believe that to get the most value from your SaaS applications, seamless integration and interoperability is key. That is why we have partnered with BlackLine, the leader in financial automation and accounting.

Together, Nakisa’s Lease Administration solution (NLA) and BlackLine create a world where data effortlessly flows between applications, where streamlined operations and error reduction become the norm, and where your teams are liberated from mundane manual tasks, saving countless hours.

What is Nakisa Lease Administration?

Nakisa Lease Administration (NLA) is a secure and user-friendly enterprise cloud platform that takes lease accounting to new heights. It seamlessly unifies lease accounting operations and ensures compliance with global and local lease standards such as ASC 842 and IFRS 16. It also has native bidirectional integration with ERP systems such as SAP and Oracle, allowing you to manage all your lease-related data in one place.

NLA’s impact is felt across diverse industries, from retail and automotive to energy, finance, aviation, and pharmaceuticals. Trusted by numerous companies of all sizes, Nakisa sets the industry standard in lease management with its secure and user-friendly platform.

What is BlackLine?

Established in 2001, BlackLine is a leading provider of cloud software specializing in streamlining critical accounting processes, most notably reconciliation. Companies turn to BlackLine when traditional manual accounting becomes unsustainable.

Through the automation of repetitive accounting tasks and seamless integration with renowned ERPs like SAP and Oracle, BlackLine empowers organizations with heightened financial efficiency, data accuracy, and a strengthened culture of accountability, enabling them to thrive in the ever-evolving business landscape.

Why integrate NLA with BlackLine?

Integrating Nakisa Lease Administration (NLA) and BlackLine offers significant benefits for companies. NLA provides comprehensive lease administration functionality, while BlackLine offers robust financial automation and accounting capabilities. The combined power of both solutions enables companies to streamline lease-related accounting processes such as reconciliation, enhance compliance with accounting standards such as ASC 842 and IFRS 16, and improve financial visibility and control.

Furthermore, a significant percentage of Nakisa’s NLA Fortune 1000 clients utilize BlackLine; therefore, it was a natural fit that these two applications be integrated. The underlying principle behind this integration was to preserve and complement the “best of breed” aspects of both NLA and BlackLine. While NLA is the leader in Lease Accounting, BlackLine is the corresponding leader in reconciliation automation.

Lastly, both NLA and BlackLine seamlessly integrate with SAP and Oracle, allowing companies to achieve a comprehensive and integrated ecosystem for lease management and financial accounting.

How Does the Integration between BlackLine and NLA Work?

The Nakisa Lease Administration solution generates reports such as the Consolidated Transactions Report (CTR), a comprehensive financial document that provides an overview of various transactions that occurred on the leases. To share reports such as the CTR, Nakisa has developed the Nakisa Reporting API framework. This framework facilitates an automated export of the CTR from the NLA Cloud platform to BlackLine through an SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol).

By utilizing the API framework, the CTR is converted into a format compatible with BlackLine before being transferred via SFTP. For the integration to work, the Nakisa NLA API framework is implemented using RESTful web APIs. These APIs use HTTP requests with URL-encoded parameters to invoke cloud services. The responses are then formatted as JSON data, a widely supported data format.

This means that any programming language or integration platform that supports these protocols and formats can be used to implement the automated execution and download of the CTR report. Additionally, the integration can easily be expanded to automate the transfer of other reports generated by Nakisa NLA to BlackLine or any other consolidation tools.

Five reasons why accountants and NLA clients will benefit from this integration?

1. Increased Efficiency and Time Savings: Eliminate the risk of human error by automating accounting reconciliations (such as leasing sub-ledger balance sheet values & CTR entries), resulting in time and cost savings.
2. Enhanced Compliance and Reporting: BlackLine’s integration with NLA helps ensure source data is not manipulated as per SOX compliance requirements and other internal accounting control procedures.
3. Increased Efficiency and Time Savings: Eliminate the risk of human error by automating accounting reconciliations resulting in time and cost savings.
4. Streamlined Lease Accounting Processes: Ensure source data is not manipulated by sharing reports through API instead of exporting and re-uploading data between platforms.
5. Ease of use and flexibility: Set up reporting templates to be filled with designated information from source materials on a scheduled basis (monthly, quarterly etc.).

Driving Efficiency and Empowering Compliance

Integrating Nakisa Lease Administration (NLA) with BlackLine brings many benefits for companies seeking to streamline their lease management and enhance financial efficiency.

By combining NLA’s comprehensive lease administration functionality with BlackLine’s robust financial automation and accounting capabilities, organizations can achieve an integrated lease management solution that eliminates human error, saves time, and reduces operational costs.

Interested in seeing how this integration can help you? Talk to us and get a free Nakisa Lease Administration solution demo.