Oracle Fusion Financial Reporting Center:  Part 1

Dear Readers, in this Fusion Financial Reporting Center-Part 1 article, we will understand all about Fusion Financial Reporting Center and will learn about why this is required and what key benefits are and how to access these reports. We will also touch on how to configure and install the components in Financial Reporting Center in subsequent parts. Remember that Oracle Fusion Financial Reporting Center is a powerful tool for accessing, designing, and presenting financial reports and analytic data in Fusion Applications.

Why this is required?

Oracle Fusion Financial Reporting Center provides functionality for reporting on Oracle Fusion General Ledger balances and provides secure, self-service access to reports that use real time account information. A user can design traditional financial report formats such as balance sheets, profit and loss statements, and cash flow reports. Also one can design nontraditional formats for financial or analytic data that include text and graphics. Financial Reporting Center is a point of entry to General Ledger balances financial reporting functions and provides integrated access to both live and prepublished reports andbooks, which are collections of reports. A user can view:

• Prepublishedsnapshot reportsfor point-in-time reporting
• Multiple output formats
• Live financial statements

The Financial Reporting Center also facilitates efficient, secure distribution of reports to authorized individuals. One can perform multidimensional analysis and drill down from any of the live reports. A user can choose to review reports in their preferred format such as, HTML, PDF, or Microsoft Excel. The Financial Reports functionality includes:

• Running live reports and books in various formats
• Viewing published snapshot reports and books from previously defined and scheduled batches in various formats
• Creating embedded charts and graphs
• Refreshing report data using runtime points of view or parameters
• Expanding or drilling down from any parent value to the next parent or child value
• Expanding or drilling down from any child value to detail balances, journal lines, and subledger transactions
• Building multidimensional reports, with multiple hierarchies, using a client based tool, Oracle Hyperion Financial Reporting Studio, Fusion Edition
• Distributing reports automatically across your organization using e-mail or other distribution mechanisms
• Storing reports in a repository folder structure, using various formats, including PDF, HTML, and spreadsheets

How Fusion Financial Reporting Center works

Financial Reporting Center uses an object-oriented graphical report layout. Whether a user have little or advanced experience using an object-oriented graphical program, it is easy to design reports. Also one can use report objects, such as text boxes, grids, images, and charts, to design required reports and can use the same report objects in multiple reports like we use FSG components in EBS R12.

Oracle Fusion Financial Reporting Center provides functionality for reporting on Oracle Fusion General Ledger balances and provides secure, self-service access to reports that use real time account information. Fusion Edition (Oracle Hyperion Financial Reporting) is a powerful tool to design and presents analytic data graphically and one can design traditional financial report formats such as cash management reports, profit and loss statements, and balance sheets. A user can also design nontraditional formats for financial or analytic data that include text and graphics.

Comparison and benefits of Fusion Financial Reporting Center over R12

Below are the EBS R12 Reporting drawbacks -

• Financial reports are difficult and time consuming to prepare, defining financial reports is too technical or difficult for an end user.
• Charts and graphs are usually created outside of the reporting tool and re-assembled with report content for presentation.
• Report output needs to be presented in different formats for various reporting purposes.  Users often manually convert the report output to the appropriate format.
• Drilldown from the report is not possible when viewing amounts in a report. User must go back to the system and manually query up the balance and supporting journals and subledger data.

Features of Fusion Financial Reporting Center

• Intuitive, graphical user interface for defining reports; includes many pre-configured report functions. Advanced formatting and formulas offer powerful multidimensional reporting.
• Dynamic charts and graphs options are available.
• Report output available in MS Excel, MS Word, Acrobat PDF, XML, XBRL, MS PowerPoints.
• Drilldown from amounts in financial report to live data in the system is possible.

Benefits of Fusion Financial Reporting Center

• Increase visibility to information with charts and graphs that are embedded directly in the report and helps in quick management decision.
• Increase user productivity by having the system generate report output in the desired format.
• Gain visibility into detailed information easily and efficiently by simply drilling on parent level account balances to lower level balances, and even to underlying journals and subledger details to view the details that make up the balances.

Hyperion Overlap and details of Financial Reporting Center

Oracle Hyperion Financial Reporting Studio is client-based software tool used for authoring financial reports. Oracle Hyperion Financial Reporting Studio, Fusion Edition enables report authors to use an object-oriented graphical report layout with report objects, such as text boxes, grids, images, and charts, to design reports. Financial Reporting Studio supports the following functionality:

• Client based report definition tool.
• Object based reporting and objects are reusable across multiple reports.
• Drag and drop report grids.
• Insert additional report objects such as text boxes, images, and charts.
• Drag and drop dimensions to the report grid and each dimension can only be in one location on report: Row, column, page, or Point of View (POV)
• Insert rows and columns including data, formula, and text.
• Select dimension member using member selection or functions.
• Add calculations or mathematical functions.

Financial Reporting Center is comprised of numerous components and below is brief details of components-

• Financial Reporting:  Financial users and analysts access live reports andpublished snapshot reports and books from previously scheduled batches in a variety of formats. Other functions includes following capabilities:
• • Refresh report data using runtimepoints of viewor parameters
  Drill through from parents to other parents
• • Drill down to detail balances, journal lines, and subledger transactions
• Oracle Hyperion Smart View: Financial analysts view, import, manipulate, distribute, and share data from your Oracle Fusion General Ledger balances in Microsoft Excel.
  • Refresh report data using runtimepoints of viewor parameters
  • Drill through from parents to other parents
  • Drill down to detail balances, journal lines, and subledger transactions
• Account Monitor and Account Inspector: Financial analysts monitor and track key account balances in real time at every level of your dimensions and hierarchies. These tools provide multidimensional account analysis and drill down capability.
• Workspace: Reporting administrators:
• Create, open, save, and delete folders
• Store report objects, reports, and snapshot reports
• Oracle Hyperion Financial Reporting Studio: Report authors use an object-oriented graphical report layout with report objects, such as text boxes, grids, images, and charts, to design reports.

Diagram from Oracle Guide explaining various components of Financial Reporting Center 

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