Announcing Oracle Account Reconciliation Cloud Service (ARCS)
The latest in the Oracle EPM Cloud Suite has been released. The first one this year is Oracle Account Reconciliation Cloud Service (ARCS). Now Oracle customers have the option of using a powerful tool like Account Reconciliation to efficiently manage and improve the account recs process in a software as a service model. Along with the Oracle Planning and Budgeting on the Cloud (PBCS) service and the Enterprise Performance Reporting Cloud (EPRCS) Services, this makes the third product in Oracle’s EPM Cloud offerings.
ARCS should have most all the functionality of the on-prem Account Reconciliation Manager (ARM) with some additional benefits.
The on-prem version of the close suite will still include Financial Close Manager (FCM) and Account Reconciliation Manager (ARM), while the cloud version ARCS will be a stand-alone product.
Pricing is $120/user/month with a minimum of 10 users
The first release of ARCS will have balance sheet rec, no transaction matching in the first release.
Basic Benefits of Account Reconciliation:
- Flexible balance mapping rules with an automated completeness check
- Rules based thresholds for automatic certification and risk assessment
- Workflow support for the reconciliation process
- Audit controls for all activities
- Reporting, monitoring, and analysis
Additionally with ARCS you get:
- Tablet user interface
- New analytics covering operational performance and compliance
- Supporting social interactions around reconciliation
- Pre-defined content, reports
- Flexible integrations.
- Academy – tutorials, how-to’s, videos, etc.
The administrator sets up the reconciliation list that contain the balances to be reconciled …. Including
- Account ID
- Name
- Status
- End Date
Users receive email alerts for due dates and reconciliations that require actions.
You can do reconciliations at any level – by Business unit, Company code, or department level
Preparers enter reconciliations items, balance explanations, attachments, and comments to support the justification of the balance.
The administrator creates mapping rules to assign balances to the right reconciliation and enforce compliance and policies.
Reviewers are assigned to review monthly, quarterly, etc.
Dashboards to see the open tasks / late items…
Just like PBCS, you must choose a 1-hour nightly maintenance window for backups and patching. You can temporarily opt out of a patch, but not forever.
Data integration is flat file based. You can use EPM Automate to load pre-formatted balances into periods. From the Help Center:
FDMEE integration is on the horizon.
Stay tuned, as I will be covering the rest of the cloud services that are on the docket for 2016 in an upcoming post.
The I.T. Side 