Financial Consolidations for Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations
For many years it seems like every mid-market and enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendor has aspired to offer native financial consolidation software. However, they all seem to fall short, often to the disappointment of customers that were promised that their new ERP system easily could produce the consolidated financials from their individual subsidiary ledgers.
So why is it so hard for an ERP vendor to deliver the necessary financial consolidation functionality inside the ERP system itself? There can be any number of reasons.
Limitations in Current Financial Consolidation ERPs
Lack of ability to handle different chart of accounts
Lack of ability of consolidating across subsidiaries with different fiscal calendars
Poor currency conversion functionality
Weak auto-elimination functionality
Tedious to post manual consolidation adjustments
Weak financial report writer to produce the consolidated reports
Clunky consolidation process with too many steps
Problematic to consolidate across subsidiaries with different ERPs
Lack of dynamic pro-forma consolidations
It would be a controller’s dream if all of these areas were elegantly handled within their ERP system. And, while most mid-market and enterprise ERPs typically can check all or most of the boxes for consolidation features, almost always, consolidating in the ERP it is simply too clunky with too many steps. Because of this, the finance team ends up doing it in Excel where they at least are comfortable with formulas and they can produce professional report layout.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP
But what about Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations (D365 FO) ERP system?
While it clearly can be considered one of the top cloud solutions on the market today- alongside SAP, Oracle and Workday– customers with significant consolidations and related financial reporting needs, often end up in Excel in the final steps of the process.
While there are plenty of ERP consolidation features in D365 FO, and its native Management Reporter is an above-the-average report writer, it is increasingly normal that customers add on a “best-of-breed” corporate performance management (CPM) solution to streamline their financial consolidation and reporting software.
Modern cloud-based CPM solutions
Solver is an example of a CPM solution that comes with several added advantages for Microsoft customers.
Advantages of Solver CPM for Financial Consolidation
Solution is cloud-based Azure like D365 FO
Its configurable to D365’s general ledger as well as sub-ledgers
It has a pre-built connector to Power BI for visualization
Some cloud-based CPM vendors now also offer an Excel add-in to give power users more flexible and familiar report design.
End users can still run the same reports in the cloud using their web browsers. They could do the same using their local Excel on the desktop connected to the CPM database in the cloud.
An added advantage of modern cloud-based CPM solutions is that they typically also house advanced budgeting and workflow capabilities. This allow for a single solution and a single report/form designer for both financial reporting, consolidations and budgeting.
Level Up Your Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations With Solver
In the next decade, enabling faster and better decisions will be one of the key competitive advantages. This advantage differentiates successful, growing companies from others.
Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, a leading ERP solution, is a great cloud-based transaction platform because it drives better data and accounting processes. A modern CPM solution with a snug fit on top of D365 FO and that compliments visualization in Power BI checks the boxes that a finance team needs to take their ERP financial consolidations and reporting processes to the next level.
