Oracle Corp. is unveiling more FastForward Flows e-business applications for small and midsize companies that promise quick implementations.
Last week, the Redwood Shores, Calif., company released four applications, or Flows, for finance, human resources and project management. A fifth Flow, for supply chain management, will ship this week.
Oracle guarantees the applications will be up and running in about 90 days.
The Financial Operations to Financial Reports application automates the financials business flow, from purchase to payment, invoice to cash, assets to depreciation, and accounting transactions to financial reports. It also manages supplier payments, customer invoicing, cash management, forecasting and life cycle.
The two human resource Flows provide employee self-service functionality. The Expense Reporting to Self Service Processing application automates the expense processing flow and allows employees to submit expenses online and companies to approve, process and pay expenses electronically.
The People to Paycheck application automates human resource processes, including recruit to hire, compensate to compete and deploy to separation. Using parts of the enterprise-class Oracle Human Resources and Payroll applications, this Flow provides a foundation for strategic work force management, online benefits programs and payroll mangemement.
Finally, the Project to Profit application automates the projects flow, including plan to create, budget to bill, budget to cost management, budget to assets and analysis to project closure. Utilizing Oracles Projects application, the Flow links remote teams and distributed project data.
Tom Cook, an analyst with Boston-based AMR Research Inc., sees FastForward Flows as key enablers for midsize companies. Oracle “has all the tools in place to deliver,” Cook wrote in a recent report.
Oracles Flows are available as packaged applications or as an online service.