It’s the beginning of the fourth quarter. You’ve just finished yet another quarter-end close — the last thing you want to think about is year-end.
But it’s there, looming over your head, just like all the Christmas shopping that’s coming up fast. But, what if year-end close didn’t have to be so similar to the hellish nightmare that is shopping at the mall in December? What if year-end close could be peaceful?
Fortunately, there are tools to help — not just with year-end, but month-end and quarter-end close as well. If you’re shopping for a solution to help you speed up your close process, there are several Oracle tools (on-prem and in the cloud) that you should consider.
The Oracle on-prem financial close tools include:
- Hyperion Financial Close Management (FCM)
- Close Manager
- Account Reconciliation Manager (ARM)
- Supplemental Data Manager
- Hyperion Financial Management (HFM)
The cloud-based Oracle financial close tools include:
In this blog post, you’ll get a brief overview of each tool, telling you how they can help you have a stress-free close process. You’ll also find free resources to dive deeper into each tool.
What is Hyperion Financial Management (HFM)?
Though everything seems like it’s moving to the cloud, now is a great time to invest in on-prem HFM. This application was built for financial consolidation and reporting, keeping in mind that financial teams need custom reporting solutions that also meet global requirements. HFM gives you a single source of truth, eliminating data inconsistencies by giving you one view of your financial and operational data from multiple systems.
HFM can help you reduce your close and consolidations cycles by days or weeks, depending on your current processes. Gone are the days of double checking results — HFM gives you automation combined with efficiency. You will also rid yourself of those pesky manual processes that create bottlenecks in your close due to inconsistent data.
What else do you get with HFM? The tool gives you in-depth operational insights, complete audit trails, intercompany transaction matching, scenario management, analysis tools, various reporting features, and much more.
To learn more about the features included in the latest version of HFM and see a demo, watch the webinar replay.
What is Hyperion Financial Close Management (FCM)?
If you’ve found yourself here, chances are you’re using a tool you despise or, even worse, you’re still using manual processes, i.e. spreadsheets. Don’t get me wrong — Excel is a great tool — but data inconsistencies are all too common when that’s the main tool you’re relying on. What that means for you is more time spent trying to track your financial close tasks, especially at the end of the year.
What’s understood and assumed by Oracle’s FCM tool is that financial close means different things to different people, depending on your role. There’s an abundance of tasks — closing the general ledger or sub-ledger, making final adjustments, finalizing results, financial consolidation, reporting, and much more. FCM helps you manage all these tasks. You’re able to track everything through an automated system that can help you identify areas that need improvement, giving year-end a much more peaceful close process.
FCM is built with three modules: Close Manager, Account Reconciliation Manager (ARM), and Supplemental Data Manager.
Close Manager
Close Manager specifically helps you manage your tasks during the close process. These tasks are assigned to employees and given a due date based on each period. This way, it’s easier to tell where the slowdowns in the close process are occurring.
This module comes with pre-built dashboards for monitoring the progress of your close. You also get active calendars, making it easy to see when tasks are due. You’re also able to launch the applications from the calendar to complete these tasks.
Account Reconciliation Manager (ARM)
You’ve probably already guessed it — this module is all about managing account reconciliations. With this module, you’re able to see in real time if your reconciliations are being prepared properly. You’re also eliminating those pesky and often inconsistent manual methods by streamlining and automating your reconciliation process.
What else do you get with ARM? ARM includes many key features such as ad-hoc reporting, ability to map features, auto reconciliation of authorized zero balance accounts, pre-built dashboards, and much more.
To learn more about automating and optimizing account reconciliations with Oracle, download the eBook: The Complete Guide to Account Reconciliations.
Supplemental Data Manager
Compliance is always a huge issue when it comes to your financial close process. Supplemental Data Manager ensures that you’re SEC compliant by streamlining your supplemental data collection process. This module gives you visibility into this process, while simultaneously improving efficiency.
With this module, your metadata and data can integrate with HFM. It can drill back and drill through to HFM. You also get flexible attribute creation and formatting, data validations and calculations for attributes, and much more.
To learn more about how to optimize your financial close process with FCM, download the white paper: Optimizing Your Close Process with FCM Reportable Metrics.
What is Oracle’s Account Reconciliation Cloud Service (ARCS)?
If you’re looking for a standalone account reconciliation solution, ARCS might be your answer. ARCS is like ARM in the cloud, but there are some differences.
ARCS has the same purpose as ARM — to automate your account reconciliation process while improving accuracy. ARCS includes two modules, Reconciliation Compliance and Transaction Matching.
The Reconciliation Compliance module tracks the performance of your reconciliations. This module uses email notifications to ensure your whole team is on track and ensures that all your accounts are reconciled with the right format. This module also includes auto-reconciliations, flexible formats, and reporting analytics.
The Transaction Matching module automates the performance of intensive transactions. Matching begins when transactions are imported. First, the transaction goes through an auto-match process, then confirmation of suggested matches, and creation of manual matches.
Administrators can define match rules for each reconciliation type, and can use calculated attributes to optimize performance. The attributes are created using functions that were created to normalize or enrich the original data and provide better values through higher auto match rates.
To learn more about ARCS, watch the ARCS demo.
What is Oracle’s Financial Consolidation and Close Cloud Service (FCCS)?
This cloud-based tool is Oracle’s answer to putting on-prem HFM in the cloud. When FCCS first came out, the solution had not quite reached parity with HFM. However, Oracle representatives have stated that the solution is now on par with HFM — we'll have more on this later, subscribe to our blog to stay up-to-date on the latest Oracle EPM trends. And, because it’s in the cloud, FCCS is fast to deploy and a great solution for mid-sized organization looking to implement a solution quickly, without having to worry about hardware costs and maintenance. Having a cloud-based solution also means that improvements are made monthly and automatically, without having to your own manual updates.
FCCS allows you to consolidate based on your specific organization requirements. It uses pre-seeded content and best practices, and allows you to build an application that has only the functionality you need — nothing extraneous.
Features and functionality in FCCS include:
- Application Creation Wizard
- Consolidation-specific features
- Intercompany eliminations
- Journals with workflow
- Currency translation
- Automated cash flow reporting
- Multi-GAAP reporting
- Close process management
- Reporting
To learn more about FCCS, watch the FCCS video tour.
