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The Oracle EBS Complexities

ryan.alford — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 21:39:05 +0000

By Tracy Bishop

“What reporting tool should I use?”

I worked for Oracle as a sales consultant for many years before leaving to join a dedicated software “reporting tool” company. In that time, one of the hardest questions to answer for customers and prospective customers was: “What reporting tool should I use?”

Most customers would love to have an answer, which pointed them to one tool (meaning they only had to support one method and tool). All users could have the same training and there would be a nice consistent source of truth and interface for reporting across the organization.

Unfortunately, life and the ERP environment are just not like that.

Oracle E-Business Suite is an extremely complex suite of software, designed to support a wide variety of professional and operational disciplines in large, complex organizations. Users will range from the highest level executives and board members (who just want a “state of the nation” snapshot), to large numbers of data input and operational staff (who need to instantly see the results of their actions in the system).

Even in a sales demo, which focused purely on financial management, I would typically need to show users a range of tools to suit the different requirements they presented. This included, for example, Discoverer for ad-hoc transactional reports (or more recently Business Intelligence applications) for dashboards of key financial reports and ad-hoc reports. Adding to that mix, Financial Statement Generator (FSG) for statutory reports, online inquiries for quick analysis of transactional activity, and even Excel export utilities to plug the gaps.

Once it comes to implementation the landscape becomes more complex as each organization may have its own strategic reporting tools and the implementers may have their own preferred tools and skill sets for reporting purposes.

“Now what?”

The diagram below shows the typical deployment of different types of tools to different types of users. At the highest level, executives just want the sweet spots of information and need it presented succinctly in an easy-to-read, often graphical form. The less information they have to trawl the better.

Reporting Tools Evolution

The business data that is important to the executive level is summary information: For example, staff turnover, overall sickness levels, profitability, sales, cost of sales, project performance, etc. Often this can be a snapshot based on a data warehouse of modeled and aggregated data and does not need to be in real-time. Hyperion and Oracle OBIEE and BI Applications are often deployed to fill this need, as are third-party BI tools such as Cognos and Business Objects.

As you move down the organization structure the picture becomes increasingly fuzzy. The more diverse users and modules have a very wide variety of needs. While it would be impossible to list all the types of information these users would need, it is possible to describe their needs and, indeed, expectations.

Having seen the capabilities of Oracle (and designing the data they will input based on these capabilities,) users have the expectation that they will be able to easily access all of this information whether in summary or detailed form. Take for example, Oracle Financials: Users want to see information at the highest summary level. This includes how money is spent across an entire company or multiple companies, but with the capability to also access all of the supporting detail (and in real-time).

That can be extremely difficult in Oracle using the standard tools. That is why there are a plethora of tools used in the marketplace to meet different parts of those requirements. All too often, too much effort is spent exporting information to spreadsheets and then manipulating the raw data and reconciling it back. That time should really be spent analyzing the completed reports. Users are really looking for tools that can do this without having to spend vast amounts on implementation efforts and IT support.

I finally came across a tool, which would complement the high-level BI tools and support the operational users of the finance modules: Insight Software Suite for Oracle EBS. Check it out: http://www.insightsoftware.com/products/ebs.

Author: ryan.alford

Ryan is the Internet Marketing Manager for InsightSoftware.com.

Southeast RUG a Resounding Success for InsightSoftware.com

ryan.alford — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 22:10:58 +0000

Tonja Zeigler, winner of InsightSoftware.com's Kindle prize draw, and Mark Kolanach

InsightSoftware.com participated at the Southeast RUG Fall 2010 Meeting, which took place at the Marriott Atlanta Northwest on Friday, Dec. 3.

The event offered a day of education, updates and networking for JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, and Oracle E-Business Suite users. Amid the wide variety of education sessions and networking opportunities, InsightSoftware.com was pleased to participate in the event:

“These events are important to the health of the Oracle ERP user community,” said Mark Kolanach, InsightSoftware.com’s southeast sales executive. “Any time we can support JD Edwards and Oracle EBS customers, learning best practices and discussing how to be more effective at their jobs, is a good thing.”

As part of the day’s festivities, InsightSoftware.com had a raffle for an Amazon Kindle. The lucky winner of this early holiday gift was Tonja Zeigler of Toto USA. Thanks for participating Tonja, and congratulations!

For more information about the Southeast RUG, visit http://ps-srug.org.

Author: ryan.alford

Ryan is the Internet Marketing Manager for InsightSoftware.com.

Oracle EBS “Year-End Close” Tips and Hints

ryan.alford — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 15:06:10 +0000

By Tracy Bishop

If you want to improve your year-end processes around Oracle financials, there are a number of things you can do. The main one is to prepare well ahead of the deadline. We all know that year-end will be a rush with operational activity and sub ledger processes, including squeezing the actual accounting for year-end into a very small window. However, there are things you can do up front to take away some of the effort.

These include:

Checking your set up is correct, in terms of classification of accounts. Be sure you have used the GLOIRE process to roll forward balances well ahead of year-end. I once worked for an organization that did not roll forward their previous year’s balances until about two weeks before the following year-end. A simple report to help identify misclassified accounts will avoid problems in this area.
Checking chart-of-accounts parent/child relationships and summary accounts. Don’t leave it to the last minute to tidy up your hierarchies. Make sure there are no instances of orphan children in the hierarchies and make sure the hierarchies you have still support the reporting you will have to do at the end.
Making sure the FSGs you used last year are in good shape. Row sets can be complex and must be adjusted for any “in year” changes to your chart-of-accounts. Complex FSGs can also be prone to error, so do some integrity checks to make sure you will not have any problems.
Regularly run reports across the organization to identify any unposted journals or transactions. This will help avoid any nasty surprises.
Make sure your accruals are handled properly and completely
Use a sequential referencing system for all the regular year-end adjustments you have to make so you can easily run a quick report to check progress and identify any missing actions
Put together a “pre” year-end report pack to help with these checks (and others you may have)
Put together some easy-to-use monitoring reports to make sure everyone in the process can easily check their figures with drill-down to details
And finally, be sure the annual reports you produce can easily be reconciled back to the data in Oracle. Consequently, if this isn’t done, you will feel like you are doing the whole year-end process again when the auditors arrive.

For more information on Preparing for Year-End, visit http://mini.insightsoftware.com/yearend.

Author: ryan.alford

Ryan is the Internet Marketing Manager for InsightSoftware.com.

Spreadsheets Gone Wild!

ryan.alford — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 17:36:11 +0000

Using spreadsheets in conjunction with an ERP system is one thing. (It’s not suggested, but it happens.) However, using spreadsheets without an ERP is a completely different story altogether. According to research from the Aberdeen Group, many small and mid-size businesses are using spreadsheets without an ERP (such as JD Edwards or Oracle E-Business Suite) but in conjunction with a standalone accounting tool.

“Not surprisingly, spreadsheets top the list,” the Aberdeen research report explains. “But interestingly, spreadsheets were seldom the only tool used even in very small companies. Often spreadsheets are used in conjunction with standalone accounting applications and other desktop applications that do not qualify as true enterprise level applications or other applications that lack the breadth, depth or level of integration of ERP.”

So, it’s a “chicken and egg” scenario; which came first, the ERP or the spreadsheet? In most cases, the spreadsheets have been there all along. It’s hard to break a habit that seems to work efficiently, but there are other solutions that work better.

Does your organization rely on spreadsheets? If so, are they in combination with an ERP system or standalone accounting tool?

Author: ryan.alford

Ryan is the Internet Marketing Manager for InsightSoftware.com.

Reconciliations: It Doesn’t Have to be This Way!

ryan.alford — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 18:30:33 +0000

Check out InsightSoftware.com’s cartoon about JD Edwards reconciliations:

http://www.youtube.com/insightsoftware#p/a/u/0/RspO90mFy8w

Stay tuned for more in the series. Let us know what you think!

Author: ryan.alford

Ryan is the Internet Marketing Manager for InsightSoftware.com.

Reconciling the Accounts in JD Edwards Doesn’t Have to Be Painful!

ryan.alford — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:27:37 +0000

A company’s financial prowess and compliance go hand-in-hand. Without proper insight and strategic oversight of the business, many of today’s top global companies are missing a large piece of the financial puzzle.

CFOs should maintain the perfect balance between strategy, planning, forecasting, budgeting, reporting, and analysis. This is more simplified (and cost-effective) by having an automated process for account reconciliation. Without a monitoring system in place, performance improvements will be limited.

In a research report called “How to improve reconciliation activities,” published by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, many “account reconciliation problems are preventable. Timing, is also frequently an issue: account reconciliations that are in arrears more than one month risk misstatement of the financial results. Depending on the level of risk, perform reconciliations daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly.”

Curious to know what to do about reconciliation problems in JD Edwards? Implement automation that recognizes reconciling items and streamlines the review process.

Author: ryan.alford

Ryan is the Internet Marketing Manager for InsightSoftware.com.

Do all signs point to an unorganized implementation of Order-to-Ship?

ryan.alford — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 17:00:37 +0000

It’s not an easy job. An optimized Order-to-Ship business process offers continual progress towards improved cost control and delivery performance.

However, there might be a few challenges in the systems, including:

Rework to correct data accuracy issues
Late shipments and setbacks in delivery performance
Increased customer complaints
Time spent on complaint resolution
Poor management of backorders
Inefficient order processing and fulfillment
Untimely invoicing
Diminished cash flow and sales margins

In an Aberdeen Research study called “Working Capital Optimization: Increase Cash Flow in the New Economy,” author Nari Viswanathan said that “Best-in-Class companies are 30% as likely as all others to use cash conversion metrics as part of their supply chain organization metrics. Companies that embed cash conversion metrics into the set of supply chain metrics are twice as likely to have reduced their cash conversion cycle over the past year (45% versus 21%). Some of the key metrics that have been adopted as part of the process are: Sales forecast accuracy, on-time shipping, on-time delivery, inventory turns, logistics costs as a percentage of sales, and gross profit margin.”

Achieving an on-time shipping and delivery system is an industry standard met by few. Using JD Edwards can get you on your way, but will only take you so far.

To read more, click here.

Author: ryan.alford

Ryan is the Internet Marketing Manager for InsightSoftware.com.

The West is the Best!

ryan.alford — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 21:35:46 +0000

By Phil Walton

Quincy Ko will join InsightSoftware.com on Monday, June 28 as the company’s new sales executive for the northwest region (all the places in the West where it snows).

Quincy is based in Vancouver, Canada and comes with deep and varied experience in the Business Intelligence and ERP industries.

With experience in growing territories, short/long sales cycles, closing small/large deals, and his eye for the end-user experience, Quincy is the ideal addition to InsightSoftware. He understands our value proposition and the Insight opportunity.

Welcome to the team, Quincy!

Author: ryan.alford

Ryan is the Internet Marketing Manager for InsightSoftware.com.

InsightSoftware.com is Hiring a Southeast Presales Consultant in Atlanta

ryan.alford — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 15:31:34 +0000

Are you looking for employment? Do you live in the Atlanta area? Join the InsightSoftware.com team as its new Southeast Presales Consultant!

More details:

Business Analyst is the preferred background, someone who has experience across the technical and functional functions
Manufacturing/Supply Chain background (preferably with Oracle EBS or JD Edwards) although other vendors ERP’s would not preclude consideration. Financial background would be considered as well.
A Business Intelligence implementation under your belt would go a long way towards understanding our value proposition versus the competition
Agile and adaptable to changing priorities and multiple sales cycles
Coachable in presales, with a personality that supports interacting and presenting

Apply via LinkedIn.com: http://bit.ly/doJAe2.

Author: ryan.alford

Ryan is the Internet Marketing Manager for InsightSoftware.com.

JD Edwards Executive Luncheon in Greensboro, NC

ryan.alford — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 20:34:36 +0000

Bring your appetite and join InsightSoftware.com and brij for a sumptuous meal and great networking on June 23, 11:30-1:30. You will see why InsightSoftware.com is quickly becoming the reporting tool of choice within the JD Edwards community.

With Insight you truly revolutionize operational reporting throughout your organization. Insight supplies solutions for functional areas such as: Finance, Human Capital, Supply Chain, Manufacturing and Project and Asset Management. Insight goes beyond mere reporting to drive productivity and profitability gains throughout your organization.

Leave with knowledge of the solutions that can help you optimize your business processes, all over lunch. We will treat you to lunch at the UNDERCURRENT restaurant . Click here to RSVP.

User Group meetings on the horizon:

Rocky Mountain User Group on June 10: http://bit.ly/diOd8T

JD Edwards Southeast Regional User Group in Atlanta, GA on June 17: http://bit.ly/9ewZJR

Eastern Canada Regional User Group on June 21 in Mississauga: http://bit.ly/9zCbOF

Author: ryan.alford

Ryan is the Internet Marketing Manager for InsightSoftware.com.