With high volumes of activity in many corporations today, financial systems such as HFM are essential to facilitate data management in a highly scalable software solution. Sourced from the company’s General Ledger system, these business activities are consolidated in order to produce financial statements such as a Balance Sheet, Income or Cash Flow Statement. The final step in the business process is to reconcile all the data to provide accuracy to the reports, frequently a lengthy and manual process accomplished through excel spreadsheets.
Account Reconciliation Manager, or ARM, serves as a part of Oracle Hyperion’s Financial Close Manager’s Suite to reconcile finalized data to source data. The value of this tool relies mostly with large accounts where balances become highly integrated from various sources causing an outstanding balance difficult to trace.
Account Reconciliation Manager provides the following key features:
- Delivers “real time visibility,” by reconciling final and source data and providing a status of all account reconciliations involved in the close process, reducing control risks and supporting statutory reporting
- Streamlines processes by centralizing and automating reconciliation tasks, allowing users to spend less time on manual steps and excel spreadsheets and more time on data analysis
- Integrates with HFM to map and integrate from various GLs, ensuring data quality
How does it work?
ARM provides an efficient workflow to manage the reconciliation process. To provide an organized and risk reduced procedure, Preparers and Reviewers are assigned to perform reconciliations defined by the frequency and duration. After the reconciliation is executed, the preparer forwards to the reviewer.
Once users and optional procedures such as currencies are created, several requirements are needed to create the primary foundation of the application: data maps, formats and profiles. Data maps, which are further defined through formats and profiles, associate the detail accounts to the total balance and also summarize low-level balances to the level appropriate for reconciliation. Through the use of these detailed maps, data can be loaded into ARM through Oracle Hyperion financial Data Quality Management Integration Adapter or a file.
In relation, formats dictate the method of reconciliation in two supported methods: Account Analysis and Balance Comparison, which requires preparers to justify balances provided in the system via an explanation or comparison of transactions for review. Lastly, before reconciliations can take place, profiles dictate how and when reconciliations are made. All of the steps discussed arrange for a streamlined process, delivering real time visibility for corporations today.
Customized features to increase workflow include:
- Customized dashboards to provide status, aging and performance metrics
- Flexible auto reconciliation routines, including mass updates and import capabilities
- System generated email notifications and end user notifications
- Drill back to source system
- Preparation and review workflow
- Offline access to account reconciliation details
