How Test Automation Optimizes Oracle EPM Financial Consolidation and Close

Oracle EPM streamlines financial accounting operations and facilitates accurate financial outcomes. Opkey's test automation platform enhances Oracle EPM Cloud's Financial Consolidation and Close process. Let’s dive in.  

Financial consolidation and close is a phrase that encompasses all efforts to finalize financial and accounting processes within a particular time frame. This process ensures stakeholders, executives, and investors gain a precise understanding of the company's financial health on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. While "financial close" and "closing the books" are sometimes used interchangeably, it's crucial to note that there is a distinction. Financial consolidation and close provide an accurate snapshot of a company's financial well-being, while closing the books is a specific phase within this broader process.  

Historically, manual and spreadsheet-dependent financial consolidation processes led to errors and inefficiencies. To address these challenges, businesses are turning to services like Oracle Cloud Enterprise Performance Management (EPM). Oracle EPM Cloud Financial Close services offer a comprehensive suite of modules to empower modern finance, streamline operations, and enhance decision-making.

Learn more: How an intelligent test automation platform can reduce the burden of Oracle EPM testing.  

Common Challenges for Financial Consolidation and Close:

The financial closing process is inherently complicated. Here are six of the major financial close challenges:

How Oracle EPM Cloud Optimizes Financial Consolidation and Close Process:

Oracle Cloud Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) provides a variety of services and functionalities that help enterprises optimize their financial consolidation and close processes.    

• Automation of tedious tasks: Oracle EPM automates cash flow, dynamic out-of-box calculations, currency translations, and other tedious content in the financial closure process. Automation lowers manual errors, shortens the closing cycle, and frees financial personnel to focus on value-added tasks.

• End-to-end integration: Seamless integration with other systems enhances efficiency. Oracle EPM works smoothly with other systems, including ERP, task management, data management systems and third-party apps.

• Collaboration among cross-functional teams: Cross-functional teams participate in the financial closing process, and Oracle EPM Cloud facilitates the need for customization and cooperation and among finance, accounting, and audit teams.

• Real-time reporting and analysis: Oracle EPM Cloud provides reporting and analytical capabilities. Live data and analytics enable teams to actively manage the closing process.  

Opkey for Oracle EPM Testing and Financial Consolidation and Close:

The benefits of Oracle EPM Cloud for the financial consolidation and close process are obvious, but they come with maintenance requirements. To guarantee that all your financial activities run smoothly, you must develop a strong testing strategy.  Select test automation tool like Opkey, as they come up with vast experience with Oracle EPM projects. Opkey helps businesses maximize the ROI on their Oracle technology investments and reach their full business potential.

• Ensure a rapid release : Delays in EPM updates may occur due to imprecise testing scope and reliance on manual procedures. Get started with Opkey's test automation technology and examine existing testing procedures to achieve optimal results.  

• Reduced testing costs:  Opkey's continuous automated testing platform lowers testing expenses by identifying problems early in the software development lifecycle. Early discovery of faults reduces repair costs during upgrades.

• Reducing business risk:  Oracle EPM projects that have not been fully tested might offer a long-term and severe danger to a company's finances, operations, and reputation. Opkey's AI-powered features enable firms to focus their testing on their most hazardous processes, ensuring that worst-case scenarios do not occur.

• Improved test coverage:  With twelve EPM releases every year, it's difficult to manually test all scenarios. Opkey's pre built testing assets improve testing coverage by addressing the majority of scenarios.