The Benefits of Oracle Close Manager for Closing the Books from Home

The pandemic has disrupted normal close processes for many organizations, but it presents an opportunity to create a closing procedure that works for employees in home offices. The best part is that you might already have the tool for the job: Oracle Close Manager. If you’re in the cloud, you can find it in FCC EPM Cloud application. For on-premises deployments, you’ll find it in Close Management. Here are the ways Oracle Close Manager transforms the closing process.

Better Communication with Your Team

Email notifications alert employees so they know when to work on their monthly close tasks. This is a productivity boost that avoids your employees having to wait for instruction, or for a specific time. You also have access to a real-time dashboard that provides full visibility into the tasks in progress.

All Tasks in One Place

Everyone accesses the same repository to get the information they need to close the books each month. The templates, attachments, data, and instructions for each task are easy to access, standardizing the workflow and keeping employees on the same page. Establishing your close process in this manner also makes it easy to onboard new hires or those wanting to cross-train in other tasks.

Speed Up the Review and Approval Process

The entire process can slow down if you need to wait for a remote employee to review or approve closing tasks. Luckily, Close Manager allows users to see when items need review, making it easy for them to send approvals. With less dead time between tasks, you can close the books faster.

Create More Efficient Workflows

Setting up your close process in this application requires you to go step by step through every task. You can pick up on bottlenecks and eliminate unnecessary work. Another way you benefit is by seeing each employee’s overall load. By distributing tasks more efficiently, you can ensure that members of your team have appropriate but not overloaded schedules. You can refer to this data each month to continually improve the workflow.

Increase Your Control

The overview dashboard in Close Manager allows you to keep a close eye on closing. You can see when employees submit data, easily follow up with the appropriate department if this information is not available, and discover compliance issues in a single panel. You don’t have to track down an employee or play phone tag to get what you need to close the books.

Oracle Close Manager Is Not Just for the Pandemic

Your organization may have work-from-home employees who intend on staying remote after the pandemic. Even if you plan to bring people back into the office when it’s safe, having a remotely accessible way to close the books just makes sense. You never know what might happen down the line. The flexibility and efficiency this approach offers will set you up for the future.

Consider the everyday situations your team encounters that would be disruptive if you couldn’t close remotely:

• Severe weather makes it difficult or impossible to get to the office.
• Parents needing to pick up a sick child from school and stay with them at home.
• A star employee needing to take care of an aging parent at home.
• Someone’s car breaking down unexpectedly.

 
When your team can work from home, these scenarios don’t have to delay closing the books every month. Work-life balance improvements from remote work are another important consideration. As more organizations choose to offer permanent remote positions, talented workers are ditching long commutes and working from the comfort of their own home office. You could have long-term issues with hiring or keeping workers if you don’t have this perk available.

Getting the most out of Oracle Close Manager requires specialized skills. Datavail is an Oracle Platinum Partner and Cloud Excellence Implementer. We’re recognized by Oracle for our in-depth expertise across the full Oracle Hyperion EPM solutions suite. Get in touch with our EPM professionals to start closing your books remotely, or download our white paper “Closing the Books from Home or Anywhere Else Around the Globe” to learn more about setting up and using Close Manager.