3 Learning About Setup Best Practices
Implementing account reconciliation compliance solutions like Oracle Account Reconciliation Cloud Service is more art than science. There is no one right way to do it. This section contains best practice suggestions for two challenging implementation topics: implementation methodologies and format design.
Implementation Methodologies
Implementation methodologies are options for how you roll out Account Reconciliation across your organization. Oracle recommends managing your scope tightly to achieve measurable success as quickly as possible. For most companies, this means that every account that requires reconciliation is in fact reconciled. You can achieve this goal quickly, and with minimal disruption to your business, by using a "tracking only" implementation.
Tracking Only Implementation
With tracking only implementations, you don’t have to change how people do their reconciliations. You simply track that they are being performed. The key impact is on Format design. In these implementations, you’ll have only one or two formats for your initial rollout. These simple formats are meant for users to attach completed reconciliations, typically performed in Excel. Oracle provides a sample "Tracking" format with our standard formats. Implementing a tracking only approach gives you complete visibility into the status of the reconciliation process, and centralized access to the reconciliations themselves.
Format Design
After users are comfortable with this process, you can work towards secondary goals, such as ensuring that every reconciliation performed qualifies as a valid reconciliation. You achieve this through effective format design. Reconciliation formats are best designed at the Account Type level. Subledger-supported accounts like Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, and Fixed Assets are the easiest accounts to migrate from tracking-only formats to custom formats. It’s best to time the migration of these types of accounts to coincide with the automation of subledger balance loads. This way, users will immediately recognize the benefit of auto reconciliation when the source and subsystem balances match.
Accounts not supported by subledgers and that require reconciliation using an account analysis method, such as prepaids, accruals, provisions, and reserves, are more challenging. A best practice for these types of accounts is to design formats that ensure a high quality reconciliation by guiding the user through the analysis they need to perform. With Format design, you can customize exactly what information must be included when reconciling items or balance explanations are entered.
You can also add rules that validate data or require attachments. For example, for intangible assets, rather than asking for a general description of the items comprising the balance, you can ask questions to assess the quality of the items, to ensure that they belong in the account balance. By rolling out custom Formats at the Account Type level, you can target highest risk accounts first, minimizing disruption where needs are not as great.
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