1. Getting Started with Your Financials Implementation
  2. Introduction

1Introduction

This chapter contains the following:

Overview of Implementing Oracle Financials Cloud

You can use the rapid implementation features to implement users, security, enterprise structures, banks, tax, ledgers, and financial subledgers. This document provides a high-level introduction to Oracle Financials Cloud.

Note: This guide covers the basic requirements used to create an implementation project. The tasks presented in this document are intended for a quick introduction or pilot implementation. This document doesn't include all setup and security tasks that are appropriate for a complete implementation.

The rapid implementation setups for Financials include implementing:

  • Users

  • Enterprise structures

  • Bank, branches, and bank accounts

  • Tax

  • Ledgers

  • Business units

  • Financial reporting

  • Payables and payments

  • Assets

  • Expense reporting

  • Receivables and payments

References to related help accompany each of the steps. Help and additional information are available from:

  • Oracle Cloud Help Center (docs.oracle.com)

  • Oracle Fusion Applications Help embedded in the applications

Overview of Oracle Financials Cloud

Oracle Financials Cloud delivers a complete solution that includes:

  • General Ledger

  • Intercompany Accounting

  • Payables

  • Receivables

  • Payments

  • Cash Management

  • Tax

  • Expenses

  • Assets

Use these applications with business intelligence, compliance reporting, and mobile data access for:

  • Financial accounting

  • Transaction processing

  • Payment delivery

  • Cash reconciliation

  • Employee expense processing

  • Asset management

The figure shows the activities that Oracle Financials Cloud facilitate, including financial accounting, asset management, employee expense processing, cash reconciliation, payment delivery, and transaction processing.

Access data through pages that contain:

  • Navigation tools in the global area of the Home page.

    The screenshot shows the navigation icon bar. The navigation bar includes the navigator menu, logo, home, global search, favorites and recent items, watchlist, notifications, and settings and actions menu icons.

  • Icons to navigate to pages.

    The screenshot shows the Home page with a group of icons to use to go to your tasks. The Home page also consists of the global area, a row of dots taking you to infolet pages, and a home panel where you can collaborate with your colleagues.

  • Infolets in an Infolets page or work area.

    The screenshot is an example of the General Accounting infolets that display key information on areas, such as open subledgers, revenues, AP reconciliation, AR reconciliation, and journals.The screenshot shows the Invoices work area that displays a row of infotiles and a table of related details.

  • Panel tabs for tasks, searching, and analytics accessed by icons on the page.

    The screenshot shows the tasks in the Invoices work area accessed by the Tasks icon. These tasks are categorized by invoices, accounting, assets, and Payables periods.

  • Transaction details in a work area.

    The screenshot shows transactions in the Accounts Receivables work area. Infotiles appear with key information, along with the related details in a table.

  • Transaction details as a separate page.

    The screenshot shows the Create Journal transaction page. Relevant fields are included in the Journal Batch, Journal, and Journal Lines sections.

From the application pages, access:

  • Embedded analytics, which enables you to complete a transaction or analyze data.

  • Interactive infolets and work areas to view:

    • Information summaries for a high-level overview.

    • Information monitoring and drill-down capability.

    • Transaction information that's central to one or more business processes.

    • Business intelligence content that's complementary to one or more business processes.

  • Real-time reporting for:

    • Viewing reports and analytics for each individual work area.

    • Exploring predefined analyses.

    • Creating and editing analyses from the Reports and Analytics panel tab or work area.

    • Accessing the Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) Enterprise Edition through the Reports and Analytics panel tab. See the new objects and changes to existing objects that you made in Oracle BI Enterprise Edition, which are then available from Oracle Financials Cloud.

    • Viewing and running financial reports from the Financial Reporting Center, which is a single point of entry for general ledger financial reporting functions. The Financial Reporting Center includes:

      • Tools to create and format financial reports, including Financial Reporting Studio and Workspace.

      • Live and interactive financial reports with multiple output options, including HTML, PDF, Excel, or Excel in Query Ready mode using Smart View Enabled formats.

      • Drill downs to underlying journals and subledger transactions with the Account Inspector.

      • Multiple reporting methods for ad hoc analysis, efficient monitoring, and tracking of key account balances in real time with the Account Monitor.

Overview of Using Infolets to Identify Issues and Prioritize Tasks

Watch video

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Use infolets to gain real-time insight into common financial activities and prioritize your daily activities. Understand your organization's status using graphs and indicators to focus on issues in general accounting and cash transactions.

This overview gives a brief outline of the General Accounting infolets and the tasks you can accomplish using them.

Navigate to the General Accounting Infolets page using the page control icons on the home page. You can perform the following activities using infolets:

  • Configure individual infolets according to your financial specifications. For example, you can adjust the thresholds by flipping the infolet to expose the filtering criteria. When you flip the infolet back, the data now represents the new thresholds.

  • Configure infolets in other ways to align with your business practices. For example, you can edit a title using the Actions icon on the infolet. You can also select what views you want to enable, such as a summary front and back view or an expanded view displaying additional details.

  • Access underlying reports and pages from the information displayed on the infolet. For example, you can drill down to review the detailed information and make corrections on that same page, if necessary.

  • Use the Infolets Repository to enable or disable individual infolets available to you. For example, you can deselect infolets that you don't need and when you go back to the infolets page, those infolets are hidden.

Overview of Using Work Areas to Streamline Business Processes

Watch video

Watch video

Use work areas to gain instant insight into your business and identify potential problems with processing transactions. Work areas are available in areas such as Accounts Payable Invoices, Accounts Receivable, Billing, Advanced Collections, and Fixed Assets.

Work areas can include the following:

  • Infotiles

  • Content area

  • Actions toolbar

  • Tasks panel tab

  • Search panel tab

  • Reports and Analytics panel tab

Infotiles

Infotiles summarize a high volume of transactional information. You can quickly identify potential problems and prioritize your daily activities by scanning the infotiles and accessing transaction details.

For example, select an infotile to display corresponding transactional information in the content area. You can also click links in the infotile to filter the records in greater detail in the content area.

Content Area

The content area displays transactional information related to the infotile you select. You can review the detailed information and take the necessary action.

For example, click the item link in the table to drill down to transaction-level information. You can perform multiple actions on the transaction, such as editing the invoice, approving or rejecting the transaction, and posting the invoice to the ledger.

Actions Toolbar

Use the actions toolbar to perform a range of activities on one or more rows you select in the content area.

For example, select a transaction row and use the View menu to view the transaction in more detail. You can export the data to an Excel worksheet, detach the pane, approve or reject one or more transactions, as well as apply additional filters.

Tasks Panel Tab

The Tasks pane includes tasks that are related to the work area and that you have access to perform.

For example, create an invoice, review journal entries, create mass additions, and manage accounting periods within a task pane.

Search Panel Tab

Search enables you to find a specific transaction using search criteria related to the work area.

For example, search on an invoice number or supplier in the Invoices work area to find a specific transaction.

Reports and Analytics Panel Tab

The Reports and Analytics panel tab contains predefined reports as well as a folder for you to set up your own reports.

For example, use the predefined reports to perform a deeper analysis on invoices above a certain dollar amount without a PO. You can also access reports that you have copied and modified and stored in your own folder.

Overview of Your System Integrator

After you determine the applications to implement, complete any steps that are needed for your implementation plan in Oracle Global Human Resources Cloud first to address any dependencies with Oracle Financials Cloud.

For best practices in implementing Oracle HCM Cloud, see Oracle Global Human Resources Cloud Getting Started with Your HR Implementation.

Your system integrator uses his or her implementation expertise to help you with a smooth transition to Oracle Financials Cloud. They also use the Rapid Implementation task list to help you achieve a successful implementation in the shortest time possible.

Related Topics

Purchase and Activation of Oracle Cloud Application Services

Purchase and activate Oracle Cloud Application Services from the Oracle Cloud web site, https://cloud.oracle.com.

The process involves:

  • Purchasing and activating your services.

  • Verifying that the services are activated, monitoring the services, and performing other administrative tasks.

Purchasing and activating any Oracle Cloud service is described in the Oracle Cloud: Getting Started with Oracle Cloud guide. Many administrative tasks are covered in the Oracle Cloud: Managing and Monitoring Oracle Cloud guide. All of the following references in this section point to one of these guides.

Note: Not everything in these guides is relevant to Oracle Cloud Application Services, for example details about Oracle Java Cloud Service and Oracle Database Cloud Service.

Terminology and User Roles

  • Before you proceed, you should understand terms that are used in documentation about Oracle Cloud. Refer to the Oracle Cloud: Getting Started with Oracle Cloud guide.

    See: Oracle Cloud Terminology

  • You should also be familiar with roles for users of the Oracle Cloud web site or of the actual service. Refer to the Oracle Cloud: Getting Started with Oracle Cloud guide.

    See: Oracle Cloud User Roles and Privileges

Service Purchase and Activation

  • Your buyer or an Oracle sales representative orders a cloud service and specifies information about the account administrator during the ordering process. Refer to the Oracle Cloud: Getting Started with Oracle Cloud guide.

    See: Buy an Oracle Cloud Subscription

  • The account administrator receives an e-mail with a link to activate the service. As part of activation, the account administrator provides information about the administrator who performs the functions of both the service administrator and the identity domain administrator. Refer to the Oracle Cloud: Getting Started with Oracle Cloud guide.

    See: Activate Your Order from Your Welcome Email

Service Verification

  • The administrator who was identified during the activation process:

    • Verifies that the service is activated. Refer to the Oracle Cloud: Getting Started with Oracle Cloud guide.

      See: Verifying That Your Services Are Ready

    • Manages and monitors the service. Refer to the Oracle Cloud: Managing and Monitoring Oracle Cloud guide.

      See: My Account Administration

      See: Performing Service-Specific Tasks

    • Optionally create initial administrator and implementation users before enterprise structures setup.

      • Alternatively, the administrator sets up enterprise structures and then creates service users, including functional implementors.

  • Functional implementors perform configuration and setup steps.

  • Developers can add features to extend the application.