Modern businesses need collaborative processes that can connect the dots between operational and financial data without the hassles of disconnected spreadsheets and manual processes. Businesses need a solution that can combine diverse data sources from across the organization, while letting your team analyze data and make accurate predictions.
Cloud-based EPM financial systems transform the finance department and bring fact-based planning and informed decision-making to all functional areas of your business – from HR and operations to marketing, sales, IT and beyond. However, organizations that aren’t using a cloud-based EPM system can face many difficulties.
Top EPM Challenges Faced by Organizations
Spreadsheet overload
Using too many disconnected spreadsheets means that you don’t have a proper system – no checks and balances, no audit trails, and no workflow processes. This leads to broken links, bad formulas, and a lack of consistency among stakeholders and between versions.
Disconnected reporting solutions
Reporting solutions are usually a disconnected collection of legacy applications from a variety of vendors. Reports generated by these solutions are typically difficult to create and integrate, making it difficult to combine and analyze data from different departments resulting in inaccurate data and reports that don’t provide meaningful or actionable insights.
Lack of real-time reporting
Businesses need complete, timely reports for deeper insights and better decision-making. Some reports are also essential to maintain compliance with various standards. But these kinds of reports take a long time to generate, and when you finally consolidate information and generate the report, it is already outdated.
Analysts without insight
Even if you’ve hired the right people who can add value by providing insights into your finance process, getting them the data and the tools they need, at the right time, to analyze and make accurate predictions is difficult and time consuming.
Lack of flexible systems and processes
Organizations could benefit from updating their systems and processes by adopting industry best practices and involving more stakeholders in finance and budgeting processes. However, updating the current system is complex (in some cases, impossible) and expensive. But you still don’t have the new data you need.
Advantages of Cloud EPM Financial Systems
Finance teams need world-class planning as well as financial close and reporting capabilities that are informed by proven best practices, and accessible through the innovation and simplicity of a unified cloud experience. Modern, cloud-based EPM systems give confidence that the resulting data and insight are accurate, up-to-date, complete, and accessible.
Optimize the financial close
In a constantly evolving regulatory environment, you need to adapt quickly to new requirements and deliver faster, more-accurate insights to all stakeholders. Cloud-based EPM systems can help you streamline the financial close, and report with confidence and insight.
Drive accurate and integrated planning
Disconnected spreadsheets, manual processes, and fragmented reports can sabotage your org-wide planning processes. Cloud-based EPM financial systems help you align planning across the enterprise, so that you can develop agile forecasts for all lines of business and respond more quickly and effectively to change.
Comply with reporting requirements
There’s no need for multiple reporting systems with the right cloud-based EPM solution. You can effectively comply with multiple reporting standards, while ensuring that the data used in your reports is accurate, complete, and up-to-date.
Manage change with enterprise data management
Whether you’re migrating applications to the cloud, managing applications in a hybrid environment, or undertaking major business and financial transformation, an enterprise data management platform in the cloud helps ensure data accuracy and integrity with the alignment of your data and master data.
Leverage emerging technologies
Traditionally, EPM systems acted as a replacement for spreadsheets to analyze data. Next-generation, cloud-based EPM systems minimize the analysis phase to enable faster decision-making with intelligent performance management and predictive analytics powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Why Oracle EPM Cloud?
Oracle EPM Cloud is the most complete and connected EPM solution to give you the agility you need to outperform in today’s constantly evolving business landscape. Oracle EPM Cloud meets the requirements that today’s finance groups require, offering flexibility, lower costs, and better access for more contributors with collaboration and social features along with advanced, built-in analytics.
With Oracle EPM Cloud, finance teams can:
Optimize the financial close – Comprehensive consolidation and close, close process orchestration, single version of truth on a single reporting platform
Streamline account reconciliation – efficiently manage and improve global account reconciliation by exploiting automation
Drive accurate and agile integrated plans – from long-range planning / strategic modeling to bottoms up budgets and forecasts and line of business planning that incorporates best practices
Manage and drive profitability – determine which customers, services, and products improve profitability and lower cost
Align tax reporting with corporate financial reporting – seamless transparency between tax and finance with a strong compliance framework
Satisfy internal and external reporting requirements – collaborative narrative reporting, interactive dashboards, regulatory and XBRL filings
Manage change with enterprise data management – enterprise data governance, change data visualization, hierarchy management
