Transcript Streamline your Oracle Financials Close process

www.UC4.com
Streamline your Oracle Financials Close
process
Hamish Henderson
Senior Consultant
UC4 Software
Business Value$
• “The Hackett Group’s studies show that “world-class
companies spend 45 percent less” on their closing and
reporting efforts than other companies, which on
average saves $5.5 million per $1 billion in revenue.
These savings come, in part, from needing fewer people
and systems to scrub data.”
Galen Gruman, CIO
How IT Executives Can Help Speed Up Financial Reporting, CIO Magazine, March 15, 2007
http://www.cio.com/article/print/41039
Sound Familiar?
• Does your organization have execution errors, and
costly recovery efforts due to human error in
processing?
• Do you have unreliable processing and reporting
delays?
• Does critical business information fail to reach
management in a timely and accurate fashion, delaying
key business decisions?
• Do technical and functional employees spend a
disproportionate amount of time “baby sitting”
processes?
• Are you having difficultly scaling your manual processes
to support future company growth?
Agenda
• Common issues
• Consequences
• Common Alternatives Used
• Solution
• Targets for Automation
• Solution Success Stories
General Business Issues
• Human intervention => Data entry errors and related
delays
• Employees spending lots of time “baby sitting”
processing
• Manual processes make it difficult to support company
growth
• Manual processing is difficult to “prove” during audits
• Applications silos make it difficult to automate a
business process
• Delays in information reaching executives
Oracle EBS Issues
• Oracle Workflow directs users to complete tasks,
not automation
• Still must use Concurrent Programs (CPs) to
complete job tasks
• Many CPs must be handled manually
• Concurrent manager is Oracle myopic
• Integration still relies on user initiation and
intervention
Pain Points – Oracle E-Business Suite
• Number of Operating Units
• Number of Sets of Books
• Reporting Requirements
• Interfaces – Internal/External
• Disparate Systems
Common Alternatives
• Throw more people at the problem
• Customize application code
• Write additional custom code
(each customization costs $10k on average)
• Customize Workflow
• “Live with” Concurrent Manager
• Stagger CP schedules around manual jobs
Consequences
• Lost Revenue
• Delays in customer billing
• Missed supplier discounts
• Misstated Financials
• Increased Costs
• Increased staff
• Custom development and subsequent maintenance
• Lack of timely and accurate data
Targets for Automation in Oracle EBS
• Manually submitted processes
(typically non-SRS concurrent requests)
• Parent/child/subchild tracking
• Workload management of requests
(both scheduled and ad hoc)
• Integration with other applications
• Output Verification and Notification
• Standardized and repeatable processes
“Typical” Financial Period Close
Non-SRS Concurrent Process - Open Financial
Period
UC4
Solution
Closeup
UC4
Solution
Solution: Automation
Manual:
slow and
error prone
Automated:
faster with
reduced errors
Financial Period Close Solution
AppWorx Solution
What are the Key Benefits?
• Standardization of Oracle Processes across all
OU’s – Best Practices
• Automation of Oracle Processes across all OU’s –
Accurate & More Frequent Reporting
• Reduced Process Cycle Time – Timelier Reporting
• System and Process Integration
• Audit Traceability
• Conditional Logic Processing
• Output Scanning and Notification
Solutions
• Only Product in our space
Validated for
Oracle 11i E-Business Suite
Application Landscape
Who is UC4 Software?
• Creators of innovative, feature-rich, proven
software for application infrastructure and IT
workload automation
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Grant Gerbert, Baobab Software, Melbourne.
1500+ customers worldwide
130+ Oracle EBS customers
Most Visionary in Market – Gartner Group
Key Partnerships:
Oracle, SunGard HE, SAP, Quest, Hotsos, Solution Beacon
1500+ Customers Worldwide
Financial
Services
Public
Sector
Telecoms
& Media
Retail &
Logistics
Cross
Industry
Service
Providers
Utilities &
Energy
Business Value$
• Provide key decision makers with relevant and
timely information and set materiality levels from
an enterprise-wide perspective
• Improve operational and systematic efficiency
in business processing
• Apply standard automated processes
across the organization
• Allow resources to focus on higher value
job functions
Customer Success: Sun Microsystems
• Customer Objectives
• Streamline & Automate
Period Close
• Move to Production
• Results Achieved
• Reduced Manual Input
• Reduction of Input Errors
• Eliminate Period Close
Reruns
• Resource Re-assignment
• Reduced Period Close
Time from 6.5 Days to 13
hrs~ 75% Reduction
• Automations Performed
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GL Import and Post
GL Open & Close
AR Open & Close
Purchasing Open & Close
Inventory Open & Close
AR - GL Transfer
Monitoring MRP Child
Processes
• Financial Statement
Generator
Customer Success: Symantec
• Customer Objectives
• Streamline and Automate
interfaces from Oracle EBusiness Suite to Siebel
CRM
• Replace “Home Grown”
Scheduling System
• Results Achieved
• “Lights Out” Operations for
CRM Interfaces
• Automated use of First
Logic data cleansing tools
• Automated interfaces to
Data Warehouse
• 14 Month ROI
• Automations Performed
• Automation of month-end
close incorporating:
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Siebel
Informatica
Business Objects
Oracle Financials
AR Interface to GL
AP Interface to GL
Inventory Interface to GL
Importing and Posting JEs
from Sub-Ledgers
Customer Success: Vivendi Universal Games
• Customer Objectives
• Streamline and Automate
interfaces into and out of
Oracle E-Business Suite
• Reduce Latency and Errors
• Improve time to deliver
orders
• Results Achieved
• Enhanced Notification
• “Lights Out” Operations for
Interfaces
• Automations Performed
• Automation of Interfaces
into and out of Oracle EBusiness Suite (Orders,
Shipments, Invoicing)
• For each operating unit in
APAC (5), NA (1), and
Europe (10):
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AR Interface to GL
AP Interface to GL
Inventory Interface to GL
Importing and Posting
Journal Entries from SubLedgers
Best Practices
• Centralize/standardize, simplify, and automate
closing process
• Automation allows a shift of processing time to
non-working hours
• Keep a library of “output scan” error messages
and their resolutions
Questions?