From Record-to-Report to Insight-to-Action: Re-engineering the Finance Operating Model for the Cloud ERP Era
Abstract
Finance organizations are investing heavily in cloud ERP platforms—SAP S/4HANA, Oracle ERP Cloud, Workday Financials—without redesigning the underlying operational model. The consequence is predictable: organizations upgrade the infrastructure but run the same Record-to-Report process they ran on the legacy platform, and the close cycle does not shorten. This paper argues that cloud ERP adoption creates the enabling conditions for transformation but does not deliver it. Transformation requires three simultaneous operational changes: re-architecting the close workflow around exception-based reconciliation, embedding analytics in the transaction workflow rather than routing data to a separate BI layer, and redefining finance roles so that analysts drive exception management rather than transaction processing. The paper synthesizes evidence from ERP modernization programs undertaken between 2013 and 2016, the continuous auditing literature, and the technical documentation of in-memory ERP architectures to present a five-level finance maturity model and an implementation sequencing framework. The model distinguishes between organizations that have adopted cloud ERP technology and organizations that have redesigned the operating model to exploit it—a distinction that the vendor literature obscures and that most implementation programs fail to make
Keywords
DOI
PDF Download
Publication Information
| Journal | International Research Journal of Innovative Engineering |
|---|---|
| Volume | 1 |
| Number | 2 |
| Pages | 371-376 |
| Published | 2017-09-13 |
| Issue | Vol. 1 No. 2 (2017): International Research Journal of Innovative Engineering (IRJIE) |
References
2. S. Parthasarathy and S. Sharma, "Efficiency analysis of ERP packages—A customization perspective," Computers in Industry, vol. 82, pp. 19-27, May 2016.
3. H. Gangwar and H. Date, "Understanding cloud computing adoption: A model comparison approach," Human Systems Management, vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 93-114, Jul. 2016.
4. H. Gangwar and H. Date, "Critical factors of Cloud computing adoption in Organizations: An Empirical study," Global Business Review, vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 886-904, Jun. 2016.
5. H. O. Awa, O. Ukoha, and B. C. Emecheta, "Using T-O-E theoretical framework to study the adoption of ERP solution," Cogent Business & Management, vol. 3, no. 1, Jul. 2016.
6. J. Costa et al., "Enterprise resource planning adoption and satisfaction determinants," Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 63, pp. 659-671, Jun. 2016.
7. R. M. P. Jeyanthi, "Adopting cloud ERP in small and medium enterprises: Benefits and challenges," International Journal on Recent Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication, vol. 4, no. 11, Nov. 2016.
8. J. R. Kuhn, Jr. and S. G. Sutton, "Continuous Auditing in ERP System Environments: The Current State and Future Directions," Journal of Information Systems, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 91- 112, 2010.
9. P. Rikhardsson and R. Dull, "An exploratory study of the adoption, application and impacts of continuous auditing technologies in small businesses," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, vol. 20, pp. 26-37, Feb. 2016.
10. R. Haynes and C. Li, "Continuous Audit and Enterprise Resource Planning Systems: A case study of ERP rollouts in the Houston, TX oil and gas industries," Journal of Emerging Technologies in Accounting, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 171-179, Mar. 2016.
11. J. Zhang, X. Yang, and D. Appelbaum, "Toward effective big data analysis in continuous auditing," Accounting Horizons, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 469-476, Feb. 2015.
12. J. Lee et al., "Hybrid Garbage Collection for Multi-Version Concurrency Control in SAP HANA," Proceedings of the 2016 ACM SIGMOD International Conference on Management of Data (SIGMOD '16), pp. 1307-1318, Jun. 2016.
13. Malaescu and S. G. Sutton, "The reliance of external auditors on internal audit's use of continuous audit," Journal of Information Systems, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 95-114, Aug. 2014.
14. K. Singh and P. Best, "Interactive visual analysis of anomalous accounts payable transactions in SAP enterprise systems," Managerial Auditing Journal, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 35-63, Dec. 2015.
15. S. C. Ripamonti and L. Galuppo, "Work transformation following the implementation of an ERP system," Journal of Workplace Learning, vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 206-223, May 2016.
16. U. Jayawickrama, S. Liu, and M. H. Smith, "Empirical evidence of an integrative knowledge competence framework for ERP systems implementation in UK industries," Computers in Industry, vol. 82, pp. 205-223, Aug. 2016.
17. M. Bahssas, A. M. AlBar, and Md. R. Hoque, "Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems: design, trends and deployment," The International Technology Management Review, vol. 5, no. 2, p. 72, Jan. 2015.
18. ERP projects using prioritized requirements," Journal of Systems and Software, vol. 117, pp. 471-487, Apr. 2016.