The State Accounting Office of Georgia Integrates Financial Information, Shortens Financial Closings and Streamlines Reporting across 175 Organizations
 
 

The State Accounting Office of Georgia Integrates Financial Information, Shortens Financial Closings and Streamlines Reporting across 175 Organizations

Printer View Printer View

The State Accounting Office of Georgia was established on October 6, 2004, when the Governor, Sonny Perdue, signed House Bill 293, which codified the realignment of the state's financial reporting and financial system responsibilities under a single State Accounting Officer. The State Accounting Office of Georgia is responsible for establishing statewide accounting and reporting standards and practices; operating and improving statewide financial and human capital management systems; preparing the state's Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) (the annual audited financial statement for the entire state entity); providing statewide financial information on interim basis; training state accounting and payroll personnel in new policies, procedures, and standards; and improving accountability, efficiencies, and internal controls.

Prior to its Oracle Hyperion Financial Management implementation, The State Accounting Office of Georgia was burdened with a reporting system that had limited functionality and relied heavily on manually-intensive spreadsheets. The organization deployed the Oracle Hyperion system to integrate with and augment its existing PeopleSoft Financials deployment from Oracle, to provide a financial reporting application that streamlines data gathering, analysis, and reporting. Now the organization has a single version of the truth—one view of financial results integrated from multiple systems across the state and its components—without delays. As a result, The State Accounting Office of Georgia has been able to reduce the time needed to prepare its CAFR by two to three weeks as well as to simplify the processes and increase confidence in reported numbers. The agency also uses Hyperion to prepare and produce other statutory reports in addition to CAFR.

 
 

 
 

Challenges

A word from The State Accounting Office of Georgia

  • "Today, many public sector finance officials face the daunting task of consolidating their organization's financial information using spreadsheets that are difficult to maintain and audit. We are ahead of the curve with Oracle Hyperion Financial Management, as it provides us with a single version of the truth—one view of financial results integrated from multiple systems—without delays." – Kris Martins, Director, Financial Reporting, The State Accounting Office of Georgia

  • Minimize the use of spreadsheets—which are difficult to maintain and audit—when consolidating the organization’s financial information
  • Reduce financial close and reporting cycles for three of organization's annual reports—CAFR, budgetary compliance report, and its selected summary of financial information for the Treasury agreed upon procedures report or Treasury Acceptable Use Policy (Treasury AUP)
  • Complete the CAFR within the required 180-day cycle time
  • Enable the state to access a consolidated view of each agency’s data
  • Cut compliance costs and deliver a single, online version of the truth to improve internal and external transparency

Solutions

Oracle Product and Services

  • Worked with Oracle Partner TopDown Consulting to implement Oracle Hyperion Financial Management in less than six months, helping the state accelerate its financial close and reporting processes, meet regulatory requirements, reduce CAFR production time, and ensure confidence in numbers
  • Moved from a tedious compilation of files and spreadsheets to an integrated financial reporting application that automates data loads for approximately 175 organizations
  • Centralized state financial data and provided The State Accounting Office of Georgia with the flexibility to roll up data in various ways, depending on the specific reporting need
  • Enabled the state to access a consolidated cash balance for each agency, without needing to drill down to each fund within each agency and add the incremental cash balances—a previously time-consuming, error-prone process
  • Reduced the time needed to prepare the CAFR by two to three weeks, well within the 180-day requirement, enabling staff to spend additional time analyzing data
  • Enabled the organization to easily produce other reports, such as the Treasury AUP and BCR) and laid the foundation for possible production of reports for the Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards and American Reinvestment Act
  • Used Oracle Hyperion Financial Management's Web-based architecture to enable users to input, consolidate, and access financial information quickly, easily, and securely from any location using a standard browser
  • Used Oracle Hyperion Smart View for Office—a Microsoft interface—to enable users to load data from applications in addition to PeopleSoft through easy-to-use Smart View templates and data forms, while eliminating a previously manual and time-consuming process
  • Ensured that The State Accounting Office of Georgia can automatically load and update supplemental data in the CAFR's management discussion and analysis and financial statements notes sections (for examples, to report changes in capital assets and future debt payments)
  • Enabled the state to more efficiently analyze year-over-year trends and provide support for management discussion and analyses

Why Oracle

The State Accounting Office of Georgia realized its legacy reporting system would not meet its needs to address evolving, complex compliance requirements. The organization evaluated its options and ultimately selected Oracle due to its previous experience with the solutions.

Several executives within The State Accounting Office of Georgia had extensive experience with Oracle’s Hyperion solutions and knew that they could meet the organization’s unique needs. The easy integration with the state’s existing PeopleSoft Financials application was another key selling point.

Implementation Process

The State Accounting Office of Georgia worked with Oracle Partner TopDown Consulting on designing the solution and setting up various views, as well as account hierarchies and rollups. TopDown Consulting designed the business rules, reconciled data, and set the solution up from start to finish. The State Accounting Office of Georgia went live on Oracle Hyperion Financial Management in just six months.

Partner