April 9, 2024 •Johan Sánchez
Simplify financial management by integrating data from multiple sources, facilitate strategic decision-making, and reduce operational costs.
While it is true that financial consolidation involves combining financial statements from different entities within a business group to present financial results as if all entities were a single company, a process essential for providing an accurate picture of the overall financial health of the company, it is also crucial to facilitate strategic decision-making and provide accurate reporting to investors and regulators.
However, today, organizations face significant challenges when it comes to unifying information from cross-system sources such as ERP, CRM, HCM, among others. Due to this, information often ends up fragmented or fails to integrate easily, leading to a significant increase in costs in terms of time, effort, and application maintenance. Additionally, it makes decision-making more complex and increases the risk of uncertainty regarding data quality.
Challenges of integrating multiple systems into a single platform
There are solutions that address the difficulties associated with centralizing information when it comes from various sources. Corporate Performance Management (CPM) enables all cross-organizational systems to unify to facilitate decision-making. For instance, in particular, facing the pressing need to integrate data from multiple sources and provide a comprehensive and accurate view of financial health, OneStream has emerged as one of the leaders in unified financial management to leverage strategic decision-making based on a comprehensive and up-to-date view of business financial information.
Furthermore, one of the significant needs of companies regarding financial and accounting information lies in the speed and efficiency of accessing data regardless of its sources or if it comes from independent systems. Moreover, with CPM, it is often possible to drill down or drill back into the queried information when there is a need to seek transactional-level details.
Therefore, the ability to consolidate and analyze financial data accurately and efficiently is fundamental to the long-term success of any organization, and this is where the integration of data and information from multiple systems becomes crucial when considering two important perspectives:
Native integration with ERP systems
System integration plays a pivotal role in enhancing the efficiency and accuracy of the financial consolidation process. By linking various source systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Human Capital Management (HCM), or even Customer Relationship Management (CRM), companies can automate much of the process and ensure consistency and security over the data reported through financial reports.
In particular, OneStream offers native integration with leading ERP systems in the market, such as SAP, Oracle E-Business Suite, Microsoft Dynamics AX, JD Edwards, among others. This eliminates the need for costly custom interfaces and facilitates the transfer of financial data between source systems.
Connectivity with other data sources
In addition to native integration with ERP, connectivity with other data sources such as spreadsheets, databases, text files, and other flat files is also important. This allows for centralizing all financial information in one place, facilitating consolidation, analysis, and reporting.
As we know, financial consolidation processes can be complex and prone to errors if done manually or if the systems used are not effectively integrated. In fact, some common challenges include lack of data consistency, duplicated efforts, lack of real-time visibility, and difficulty in meeting reporting deadlines.
4 advantages of having a single platform for access, integration, planning, and financial projection
- Centralized Data: consolidating financial data from multiple sources into a single platform eliminates information fragmentation and provides users with a unified view of the company's financial health. This centralization makes it easier to generate accurate reports and make informed decisions.
- Improved Decision-Making: the availability of accurate and real-time data significantly enhances the company's ability to make informed strategic and operational decisions. Business leaders increasingly require easy access to relevant and reliable information to assess financial performance, identify growth opportunities, and mitigate risks.
- Increased Efficiency: automating financial integration and consolidation processes should enable organizations to save valuable time and resources. By eliminating repetitive manual tasks and reducing the need for manual reconciliations, companies can improve the efficiency of their financial operations and focus their resources on higher-value strategic initiatives.
- Cost Reduction: it is important to reduce operational costs by eliminating the need to maintain multiple systems and applications to manage financial information. By consolidating all data sources into a single platform, companies can eliminate data redundancy, minimize errors, and optimize processes, leading to greater efficiency and lower costs.
👉 Meet a Success Story
Integrating information and data from multiple systems to ensure more efficient financial consolidation.
Langan is a leading American company in consultancy services focused on engineering and the environment, developing projects such as corporate real estate portfolios and the energy industry. Before the implementation of OneStream in the company, financial consolidation and reporting preparation were carried out through data contained in SAP S/4 HANA, SAP SuccessFactors, Microsoft Dynamics, among others. This resulted in increased costs in terms of time, effort, and increased risks to data integrity.
Following the implementation of OneStream, the company has achieved several benefits regarding data transparency, the high analytical capacity of the platform, and increased speed in financial consolidation, as well as in report generation. Another significant aspect is the unification of information from various ERP systems, as before implementation, the information was fragmented and difficult to consolidate.
Find more information about this success case at Langan here.
The key: ensuring excellent system integration to generate value in financial consolidation
As we have seen, source system integration plays a fundamental role in optimizing the corporate financial consolidation process, where by automating tasks, ensuring data coherence, and providing real-time visibility, companies can significantly improve their operational efficiency and make more informed and strategic financial decisions. The above represents a great competitive advantage for companies in a volatile environment where data integration has become an essential tool for long-term success.
Therefore, it is necessary to have a team of integration experts who can help companies design and implement a customized solution that fits their specific needs, offering an open and flexible architecture that allows easy integration with any system, regardless of its complexity.
Furthermore, if we look at it from a sustainability and circularity perspective, we know that companies are currently seeking the automation and centralization of information to quickly adapt to circular models that allow them to access various financial benefits. These benefits include reducing operational costs through resource optimization, creating new business opportunities through innovation in circular products/services, and improving reputation and customer loyalty by demonstrating a commitment to sustainability. This is aligned with the implementation of a CPM (Corporate Performance Management), which ensures a more agile financial consolidation, with business information stored on a single platform to demonstrate more efficient and profitable processes in order to position themselves for a more sustainable future.
In conclusion, if a company is seeking a unified financial management solution that allows integrating financial and operational systems, OneStream is the ideal solution to start offering a wide range of integration functionalities, an open and flexible architecture. Additionally, through Avvale, we have different implementation references and a team of experts that enable companies to obtain a comprehensive and accurate view of the financial health of their organization.
Transform with Avvale
At Avvale, we are open to initiating this conversation to support the transformation journey of companies through strategies that simplify and add value to the financial consolidation process, from planning, prospecting, and integration of multiple sources to facilitate decision-making, reduce operational costs, and promote resilience and adaptation in a world that is increasingly moving towards more profitable and sustainable models.
Are you ready to lead your company toward an agile, circular, and sustainable future that simplifies and optimizes Financial Consolidation processes?
