Bridging Expectations With Spreadsheet Server for Oracle Cloud

May 13, 2022

insightsoftware is a global provider of reporting, analytics, and performance management solutions, empowering organizations to unlock business data and transform the way finance and data teams operate.

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The future of Finance can be summed up in one word: cloud. There is no doubt the last few years have brought a significant shift in how enterprises think and use the cloud – the pandemic accelerating these cloud migration initiatives. From working remotely to digital finance and dynamic supply chain management, companies are turning to the cloud to navigate disruption and connect to all humans in their ecosystem.

The Expectation Gap

Likely you’ve been affected by the unprecedented shift to home-based working during the last few years. With many companies having had to learn to close their books remotely, an expectation gap has materialised. This gap is best defined as what companies believe its cloud-based ERP can do versus what it can actually do. This is especially true when it comes to native financial reporting.

In a recent survey carried out by insightsoftware, nearly 40% of finance professionals expected faster reporting and 30% expected improved automated reports when migrating to a cloud-based ERP. Unfortunately, these expectations are not being met and critical reporting capabilities are being left behind.

The question remains, is this expectation gap worth delaying your finance team, who is likely already struggling to keep moving in this time of remote working and social distancing?

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The Gap Explained

When considering cloud-based migrations, you might think about other applications that have moved to the cloud with an “always available” mindset. Your expectation is that the core business applications move to the web, leading to better speed, reliability, and performance.

However, your company likely has legacy ERPs in place that have been built up over many years. These legacy systems directly suit the needs of the business because they are tailored and customised over and over again. When you control your ERP on-premise, you have the flexibility to extend, integrate and modify it, unlike a cloud-based ERP.

If you decide to move your finance team remote, accessing your on-premise ERP becomes more complex, requiring virtual private networks (VPNs) and adequate bandwidth to ensure you and your team stay as productive as possible. This complex technology can lead to frustrations among your team at a time when you are focused on managing costs and closing your books.

Closing the Gap

When moving from Oracle EBS to Oracle Cloud, you’ll want to make sure your end user capability is the best it can be. insightsoftware has worked to make sure that you can have the most advanced system available on the cloud that measures up to your previous system.

Spreadsheet Server will help with your cloud migration by establishing a secure, near-live ERP connectivity and make the transition seamless. It offers fast installation and implementation for short time to value and by connecting to 140+ data sources. So you can benefit from Spreadsheet Server’s fast, flexible, Excel-based reporting for Oracle ERP Cloud.

With Spreadsheet Server for Oracle Cloud you’ll have:

Better access to data. Once Spreadsheet Server has made its tight integrated into Oracle Cloud, your team will benefit from near real-time data that can be updated on demand or automatically sync up to every 15 minutes.
Flexible, Finance-owned reporting. A single tool to do it all with no IT support required. You’ll be able to look at historical data on Oracle EBS and compare to that on Oracle Cloud.
Reusable reports. Reports can automatically roll forward to the next accounting period. With Spreadsheet Server, you’ll benefit from easily being able to move key data round report to report.
Seamless Excel integration. You won’t lose functionality on the Oracle Cloud when using Spreadsheet Server for reporting.
Improved drill-down for deeper analysis. You’ll be able to use multiple hierarchy’s and drill-down to reports and easily find things likes summary balances to a detail, and you’ll be able to journal to sub ledger data.
Fast, easy installation with no BI project. Spreadsheet Server can be instrumental in your move to Oracle Cloud because it can validate the data. You don’t have to be in production in the cloud to see its benefits.

Although it is not possible for you to completely close the expectation gap when moving from on-premise to cloud, Spreadsheet Server works as an excellent companion to Oracle Cloud. Offering deep, flexible analysis to tackle unexpected change with confidence, you and your team will be able to best prepared for the new era or remote work ahead.