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New business intelligence and risk management applications in an upgrade to Oracle Corp.s namesake Financials suite help businesses increase financial visibility and manage risk, company officials said.
Oracle Financials 11.5.8, which became generally available this month, brings improved BI tools that add expanded role-based financial intelligence. New features include a profit-and-loss portal and an expense management portal that provide the ability to drill down from financial balances to supporting detailed transactions.
To enable enterprises to better manage financial risk, Oracle added a Risk Management application that is geared toward helping companies manage their financial exposure globally by better managing liquidity and cash. The application provides a set of pricing and analysis tools that enable complex tasks such as calculating prices or analyzing a portfolio of treasury deals for market risks, officials said.
Oracles Financials software is the hub of the companys sales, marketing and supply chain management modules and sits beside Oracles human resources module. At the core of the Financials offering are general-ledger, accounts receivable, accounts payable and fixed-asset applications.
Oracle, of Redwood Shores, Calif., said it plans to expand that footprint to include everything a company would need to track financials, including adding new capabilities for self-service, supplier portals, receivables, property manager, and assessment tools for treasury and risk, according to Steve Miranda, vice president of application development.
Oracle Financials user Karen Garrison, manager of applications development at Dayton Power & Light Co., said her company previously was not interested in risk management functionality because there didnt seem to be a big need for it. But, in light of the financial scandals at Enron Corp., that functionality has become important.
“It is definitely something were interested in now,” said Garrison, in Dayton, Ohio. “Theres been a lot of changes since Enron and all those companies. So now the financial officers have to certify everything. Everyone wants to cross their Ts and dot their Is a little more than we used to.”