You need to track financials for different areas of the business than when you first implemented Oracle E-Business Suite.

Problem

A hardware company that implemented Oracle E-Business Suite in 2001 acquired a services business in 2004. As a result, they wanted to track activity in each region so they could determine what the staffing requirements were in different locations and minimize travel time for their consultants. The chart of accounts they designed in 2001 gave them no way of accounting for different locations. No third-party reporting tools were able to solve the problem — there was not enough flexibility at the source, the accounting flexfield. The company needed a way to change the underlying structure of the accounting flexfield itself, but did not have the resources to go through a lengthy re-implementation.

The company used FlexField software to make rapid changes to the structure of their accounting flexfield. Their outdated chart lacked a location segment, so they had been forced to attach location attributes to other segments in the flexfield. Using FlexField, they were able to add a location segment. Along with a line of business segment, the company also gained the ability to track profitability by location and were able to determine where to recruit and hire for different skill sets to be more competitive in different markets.

You need to change your intercompany segment.

Problem

A made-to-order manufacturing company set up their intercompany segment with a different value set than their company segment. Not really understanding how the intercompany segment was to be used, they only allowed a single digit. When the company was acquired, the new parent company wanted them to restructure the intercompany segment, use the same value set as the company segment and restate their current intercompany transactions to the new value set company numbers. The company only used GL, AP, and PO and didn’t have a lot of transactions in their instance. A consulting firm quoted the subsidiary $125,000 to change the value set for their intercompany segment to their accounting flexfield, with the consequence of losing all of the historical transactions associated with their current flexfield. Losing history was unacceptable to the parent company, so they assigned the subsidiary the task of finding a way to add the intercompany segment while retaining all of the financial history.

Solution

The subsidiary used FlexField software to remap the current intercompany segment to their company segment values and retain all of the historical transactions. Other changes were made to the existing chart of accounts including lengthening multiple segments to accommodate the addition of more accounts and restructuring a portion of the flexfield into more logical ranges. The subsidiary was able to save about 85% of the cost quoted by the consulting firm, retain all history, and maintain the integrity of the database.