Product Manager’s Corner

Hyperion has a very long history in the Financial Close space dating back to 1983 with the launch of Micro Control. Back in 1983 I was more concerned with homework and sports, but luckily someone was developing solutions that ultimately would guide my career. I am “lucky” enough to have spent a few years as a Micro Control administrator (who doesn’t remember the floppy disks that included all the software), which shaped my interest in Financial Close software. Micro Control evolved into Hyperion Enterprise, which eventually lead to Hyperion Financial Management. All of these solutions took the best of what existed and improved on them through the use of new technology and new practices. HFM, in particular, really advanced Enterprise through the use of web-based technologies and a powerful rules engine that effectively could support any customer requirement in a very performant manner. HFM is still the leading consolidation solution in the market with well over 4,000 customers and many, many success stories.

But in the world of software you never stop innovating and that leads us to the next product in our long line of financial close solutions. Our 30+ years of experience have given us extensive knowledge on the best practices followed by our customers and what practices have been the most successful. We have taken all of this knowledge used it as the foundation for our next cloud solution- Financial Consolidation and Close Cloud Service (FCCS – one “c” is silent…). FCCS is a best practices based solution designed to get customers up and running quickly, with limited customization and a strong emphasis on reporting and analytics. Unlike HFM where the rules file allows massive degrees of customization FCCS is designed to allow customers to implement best practices with limited changes on things like consolidations rules, custom intercompany eliminations, etc. The software supports all the standard requirements – consolidations, currency, intercompany, journals, process management, etc. but for the most part this functionality is out of the box and not custom developed. The advantage here is much quicker implementations and best practices results. FCCS also includes calendaring for process orchestration (think close manager type functionality directly built into the solution) as well as support for supplemental data collection to complement the consolidation activities. Offering a complete cloud based close solution will allow customers to run their entire close process in a very efficient manner without any of the IT support headaches that on premise software occasionally can create. Obviously strong data integration capabilities will be included allowing for the typical extract, map and load capabilities people expect from a Hyperion consolidation solution. FCCS will have a very aggressive roadmap quickly adding support for high priority items like custom scripting, advanced dimensionality for deeper analysis, and support for very complex consolidation requirements. 

FCCS is not the only cloud solution we are delivering this year. Account Reconciliation Cloud Service (ARCS) is expected to be available shortly and is based on the existing Account Reconciliation Manager module of Financial Close Management. ARCS, like ARM, focuses on accounting, not operational, reconciliations and provides a complete solution for customers interested in a global reconciliation solution. ARCS offers all the same benefits of ARM with the addition of a greatly enhanced user experience, brand new analytics covering operational and compliance, and pre-defined content for reconciliation templates. 

FCCS and ARCS are built on the same EPM cloud platform as Planning and Budget Cloud Service (PBCS) and the soon to be release Enterprise Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (EPBCS). Standardizing on a single platform allows for efficient development of new features and easy training for users. The value to being in the Cloud extends to both the functional users as well as IT. IT gets to focus on critical items such as data sourcing, security, and monitoring. The functional users get the latest product releases, advancements in user experience, comprehensive help (videos, documentation, embedded, etc.), pre-built/extensible content, and quick time to value. These benefits are significant, as you no longer have to go thru the delays, time, and expense to maintain and upgrade your on-premise systems. Your chosen implementer, whether internal or through our partner network, can take advantage of the latest innovations to deliver cutting-edge and customized solutions to enhance the performance of your business, and your business can focus on what it does best.

We are excited to share more information on these new solutions at Kscope in Chicago this year at both the Sunday Symposium as well as regular sessions throughout the week.

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