A ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. Ships are made for a purpose — just as Financial Close Management was built to serve the purpose of streamlining your financial close process.
Where is your organization in the close process? Are you working harder at close, or can FCM work harder for you? Hyperion Financial Close Management can help you manage all financial close cycle tasks, including ledger and subledger close, data loading and mapping, financial consolidation, account reconciliation, supplemental schedule management, tax/treasury, and internal and external reporting processes. It will monitor any task associated with the extended financial close.
The most common mistake that FCM users make is underutilizing the tool and not reaping the full benefits from the application.
Part of the problem is that typically, the task of monitoring the financial close process gets assigned as a “side job” to someone in accounting who just doesn’t have the bandwidth. This was not originally listed as a job requirement, but the Corporate Accounting Manager and/or Senior Accountant require complete trial balance submission to complete his or her close process. Period after period to quarter end close, this individual monitors the close process for the entire corporation. Simply keeping FCM running is often the most they can manage. Instead of transforming the financial close process, this sophisticated application is reduced to a close checklist that adds an extra step to the process to mark tasks as complete.
The Case for a Financial Close Systems Administrator
The FCM application integrates with all Oracle products used during the subledger, general ledger close, and financial consolidation — it’s the integral hub on the wheel of financial close. By using the tool to its full extent, you can optimize your close process and give back time to your entire finance and accounting team.
For example, FCM generates reportable metrics on your organization’s financial close activity so that you can develop solutions to recurring bottlenecks, continually improve your processes, and free up work days for analysis and high-value activities. (Learn more in this white paper, How to Optimize Your Financial Close Process.)
A new role, Financial Close Systems Administrator, should be responsible for presenting reports and analysis to the Hyperion administration team and accounting business units.
Direct Benefits
- Enterprise-wide financial close visibility
- Real-time reporting of financial close process status
- Focused analysis of financial close process to identify bottlenecks
- Data quality assurance and knowledge retention of financial close tasks
- Roadmap for step-by-step integration from ERP to EPM close tasks
- Central repository to retain accounting process to complete tasks
Duties
Below are examples of an HFM administrator's basic duties and the corresponding tasks for FCM administration.
|
HFM Administration Duties |
FCM Administration Duties |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Evaluating Your Financial Close System & Processes
Are you making the most of your Hyperion EPM system? Our process and advisory team can help you achieve a higher ROI from your technology investment by assessing your current system and processes. Schedule a free consultation with an FCM advisor to discuss best practices and next steps for a faster, easier financial close.
