Authored by Sam Malenab | Manager, Business Performance Management
Tired of the monthly close cycle becoming a reconciliation nightmare for your team? Frustrated by persistent delays and elusive bottlenecks in account reconciliations? Say goodbye to time-consuming manual processes and endless searches for trivial discrepancies. Oracle Account Reconciliation Cloud Services (ARCS) software is a streamlined solution capable of helping users conquer balance sheet reconciliation woes while unleashing unparalleled efficiency.
Whether you’re working with a completely manual spreadsheet process or looking to improve an existing reconciliation tool, Oracle ARCS can save time, reduce errors, and ultimately make your and your team’s lives easier.
Common Pain Points During a Manual Reconciliation Process
Every company must reconcile its balance sheet—and yet, for many teams, this is one of the most time-consuming processes. Improperly configured account reconciliation systems or inefficient manual processes often stifle productivity and create significant delays in the monthly close cycle. Some of the most common pain points we’ve seen and heard from our clients include:
- Tedious manual processes: Users spend exorbitant time completing tedious and repetitive tasks. According to a recent survey, 25% of organizations need at least 10 calendar days to complete a monthly close cycle. These manual tasks also increase the risk of human error due to the sheer volume of data that users must process, further delaying the time to close.
- Decentralized storage system: Many companies are utilizing SharePoint or complex folder structures to store and organize supporting documentation. This can result in inflated IT costs and an inability to find important documents quickly and efficiently.
- Lack of visibility: Managers, reconciliation reviewers, and auditors often have difficulty accessing the information they need during the reconciliation process. In addition, leadership lacks visibility into key analytics to drive confident business decisions. Even with visibility, error-prone processes erode leadership’s confidence in data—a recent market survey found that 40% of CFOs don’t trust their reported financials, and 69% rely on spreadsheets for on-top adjustments in that reporting.
What is Oracle ARCS and How Can it Help Financial Teams Excel?
Oracle ARCS is an application available within the Oracle EPM platform that streamlines and automates the global account reconciliation process. Oracle ARCS helps reduce manual tasks and improve accuracy while providing real-time visibility into reconciliation performance. This application is available to any organization that already has Standard* or Enterprise licenses for the EPM platform and includes two modules:
1. Reconciliation Compliance: Facilitates tracking to ensure accounts are properly reconciled with the necessary accompanying documentation and establishes a clear approval workflow to keep the team on track. Functionalities within this module include:
- Automated amortization and accretion schedules
- Enterprise Journals to post back to the general ledger
- Data integrations with general ledgers, sub-ledgers, and other sub-systems
- Auto-Reconciliation rules
- Variance Analysis reconciliation types for P&L analysis
2. Transaction Matching: Automates high-volume, transaction-intensive reconciliations and seamlessly integrates results into existing tracking features within Reconciliation Compliance. Functionalities within this module include:
- Data integrations with banks, sub-ledgers, and other sub-systems with transaction detail
- AutoMatch rules
These two modules can be implemented together to fully realize the powerful capabilities of Oracle ARCS saving your team valuable time and energy during the close process.
*Transaction Matching module is only available for customers with Enterprise licenses
[sch_cta_box title=”We Slashed a Multi-Brand Restaurant Company’s Month-End Reconciliation by 75%” button_label=”See How We Did It” button_url=”https://www.schgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/SCH-Group-BPM-Oracle-Account-Reconcilation-Case-Study.pdf” bg_image=”/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Primary-Vertical-e1614887994454.jpg”]Learn how SC&H strategically optimized its Oracle Account Reconciliation process to save substantial time.[/sch_cta_box]
Key Benefits of Implementing Oracle ARCS
Whether you’re setting up a simple reconciliation process or a complex, layered system, Oracle ARCS offers many benefits to streamline your process and boost productivity. The most advantageous outcomes we’ve seen clients realize with an effective Oracle ARCS implementation or optimization include:
- Single source of truth: Oracle ARCS serves as a central repository for supporting documentation, history of reconciliation workflow and comments, and data reporting for leadership and auditors. This information is easy to access via exports, out-of-the-box reports, and custom reports. By providing a single source of truth, Oracle ARCS eliminates errors and provides a streamlined source of real-time data.
- Automation: Many reconciliation processes can be automated in Oracle ARCS to boost your team’s efficiency, including matching transactions, creating amortization schedules, and reporting. This significantly accelerates the monthly close cycle and reduces time spent on manual tasks.
- Visibility: Through easy-to-use workflow and audit capabilities, anyone can understand and analyze the account reconciliation process. Gone are the days of confusion around the status of a reconciliation, who is assigned to what reconciliation, and how the account is reconciled. Additional reporting capabilities drive more confident business decisions, further enhancing the reconciliation process.
How to implement Oracle ARCS Without Disrupting Operations
Switching over to new software without an existing reconciliation system in place (or an existing system that’s just not working) can seem like an overwhelming process. The SC&H team has developed a phased implementation approach that breaks down the functionality of Oracle ARCS into three manageable steps for an easier lift. This approach enables teams to make iterative improvements to their ARCS implementation and explore functionalities as they advance within the process.
Implementing and configuring Oracle ARCS can be a challenging process to undertake without additional support. Most teams don’t have the bandwidth to research new software, train themselves and their team on the functionalities, and transfer data to new applications while maintaining business operations. Working with an experienced team of Oracle implementers is often the key to sustainable success.
The SC&H team of Oracle EPM experts can offer the support you need to execute this implementation and additional Oracle enhancements successfully. Our team leverages industry best practices with technical expertise to deliver a user-friendly interface that fully realizes the powerful capabilities of Oracle ARCS. Accelerate your close cycle and account reconciliation process without disrupting business operations through our strategic approach to Oracle implementations.
Interested in learning how SC&H can implement Oracle ARCS to save your business time and money? Connect with one of our experts today.
