BlackLine (BL 2.04%) offers a variety of automated solutions for accounting work, and it recently received top honors from a peer-review company called TrustRadius. In this Motley Fool Live segment from "3-Minute Stock Updates," recorded on July 18, Fool.com contributors Connor Allen and Toby Bordelon consider the opportunities ahead for this promising company.
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Connor Allen: Blackline swept the board. They won first place in every category that they were competing in, which was accounting, a variety of different financial categories, and in the accounts receivable category. Really good news for Blackline, their accounts receivable is a big win here. Not only is this the core business, but they've acquired a ton of businesses, smaller businesses in the last few years to boost their accounts receivable segment of their business, and it seems to be paying off as they first place here pretty handily. That's good news for them. You always want to see acquisitions paying off, not only for the company but for shareholders as well.
I think it's going to be interesting to see, sure, they're ranked number 1 here by peer review company TrustRadius. But what does this do to their financials in the next few quarters? Does this mean anything for them? Or is this just a number 1 that they can stick on the wall and say, hey, here you go? It's just an award that we have that'll collect dust. It'll be interesting to see whether or not this does anything in the future.
Toby Bordelon: Thanks, Connor. That accounts receivable automation business, that's going to be the core business here. They're doing well with that as you know, I guess my question is, can they grow beyond that into either a business finance function and maybe even non-finance function at some point and be like a full-service business process operator if you will? Or do you think their ability to expand beyond what they got now is a little bit limited?.
Connor Allen: I think their end goal is to have a full suite of back-office financial automation products. They want all of those solutions to where they're the one-stop shop for everything that you potentially could need in this specific space for all of these back-office functions. I don't think it's going to stop at accounts receivable. I do wonder if it'll stop in the financial arena as a whole. I wouldn't expect them to get much outside of the finance realm. In terms of business operations, I don't think that's really their strong suit. They're really good with financial stuff. I think they're probably going to stick to that. But there's a ton of opportunity within that space specifically. Like this company doesn't have 98 percent of Fortune 500 companies as customers. There's still a lot of opportunity to grow here for them.
Toby Bordelon: Thanks a lot.
Connor Allen: They haven't hidden from verticals either. They continue to make these small acquisitions into new spaces.
