Think back to your last implementation or upgrade project. How many hours did your finance and accounting team devote to the project? How stretched were your IT resources? Did the implementation take so long that you were ready for an upgrade shortly after?
Budget, timeline, and company resources are all factors to consider when implementing new application solutions. The goal of implementing Oracle Hyperion Financial Close Management (FCM) is to equip the finance and accounting team with the necessary tools to optimize financial close and submission — while minimizing strain on client resources and delivering a quick turnaround time.
How Long Will It Take?
A basic implementation of FCM has all of the necessary milestones and phases of a normal project: Requirements, Design, Develop, Test, and Deploy. However, FCM can be implemented in as little as four weeks. Here’s a high-level overview of the process:
- Consultants will request documentation prior to the start of the requirements phase
- Development will start once all of the necessary requirements are identified
- Integrations tasks will be configured to your ERP and EPM landscape
- Dashboard portlets will be set up to view your close in real time
- Standardized reports for 11.1.2.4.100 version of FCM will be enabled
- Your team will be given the necessary tools to analyze and manage your financial close process
- Unit testing, deployment, and maintenance will conclude the project
For a more detailed overview, download our Oracle FCM Project Planning Toolkit. View the itemized, sequenced tasks in a sample FCM project plan, and then use the time-to-deploy estimator to customize your own plan and estimate your project timeline.
For most companies, the FCM module has not been identified as a required SOX compliant application. This works in favor of an expedited implementation. A company can implement the solution, realize the immediate return on investment, and streamline their financial close process. Timeline, budget, and client resource constraints can be adjusted based on the appetite of the company to populate close artifacts with financial close data. It's always recommended to partner with your implementation team in this process to identify potential issues prior to deploying task templates. Our consultants have the industry knowledge and expertise to make your close process more efficient.
Avoid the Most Common Mistake
The most common mistake that FCM users make is underutilizing the tool and not reaping the full benefits from the application. To prevent this, approach the implementation not just as a product deployment but as an opportunity to transform your financial close process. When companies simply fit FCM into the same old process, the sophisticated application is often reduced to a close checklist — just an extra step for your team to mark tasks as complete.
Rather, the ultimate goal is to give work days back to your team so you can focus on high-value business activities, like budgeting and forecasting in Hyperion Planning and analysis in Oracle Essbase.
