PeopleSoft Financial Management · PDF filePeopleSoft Financial Management Applications Summary PeopleSoft maintains a strong position in the financial applications market with portal-based

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DPRO-89778Daniel B. Stang

Product Report4 June 2003

PeopleSoft Financial Management Applications

Summary

PeopleSoft maintains a strong position in the financial applications market with portal-based access,increased process integration and more. Yet, the latest innovations require an upgrade for versions earlierthan 7.5.

Table of Contents

Overview

Analysis

Pricing

Competitors

Strengths

Limitations

Insight

List Of Tables

Table 1: Features and Functions: PeopleSoft 8.4 Financial Management Applications


© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved.DPRO-897784 June 2003 2

Corporate Headquarters

PeopleSoft Corp.

4460 Hacienda Drive

Pleasanton, CA 94588-8618, U.S.A.

Tel: +1 925 225 3000

Fax: +1 925 694 4444

Internet: www.peoplesoft.com

Overview

PeopleSoft’s suite of financial applications is designed to meet the financial transaction-based andbusiness operational requirements of multinational organizations. The suite provides a financial systembased on empowerment and management with an operational focus, as opposed to traditional legacyfinancial systems based only on financial accounting with a record-keeping focus. Recently added self-service functions help support a collaborative financial management environment and real-time analysisof and response to financial issues, concerns and events.

PeopleSoft provides specific functionality support for its public sector customers, including U.S. local,state, and federal government; Canadian provincial; and higher-education customers. PeopleSoft’sfinancial applications support federal budget execution, flexible multifund/appropriation accounting,commitment ledger, interagency reimbursement billing, Prompt Payment and Debt Collection Acts, andOffice of Management and Budget (OMB) and Treasury reporting requirements. All PeopleSoft financialapplications are bundled with the PeopleTools application development and end-user productivitysoftware applications.

The PeopleSoft financial applications suite includes the following transaction-based software:

• General Ledger (GL)

• Payables

• Receivables

• Asset Management

• eSettlements

• Projects

• Business Planning and Budgeting

• Expense

• Treasury

• Grants

• Purchasing

• Billing



• Contracts

• Deduction Management

• Global Consolidations

• Enterprise Performance Management (EPM)


Specifications

Platforms

• Hewlett-Packard’s Unix-based operating system (HP-UX).

• OS/390, Advanced Interactive Executive (AIX) and Microsoft.

• Tru64 Unix.

• Linux.

• Sun Solaris.

• Thin client computing (SunRay workstation).

• Wireless: rim pager, Pocket PC, Palm, mobile phone with Wireless Application

Protocol (WAP)-enabled microbrowser.

Databases

• IBM DB2 on OS/390, DB2/MVS, DB2 for Unix on IBM/AIX hardware.

• Informix.

• Microsoft SQL Server 7.

• Oracle8i and 9i on Unix platforms.

• Sybase Structured Query Language (SQL) Server 11.9x.

Clients

• 32-bit Windows only (browser-based).

• Windows 95/98/NT/2000.

• Macintosh.

• Linux.

• Unix workstations.

Current Version

8.4.




Specifications

Platforms

General Ledger




Specifications

Platforms

Provides consolidated financial and management reporting.

Allows unlimited chart of account definitions and unlimited ledgers.

Ledgers can be created for budgets, forecasts, allocation results and accrual

adjustments.

Supports Encumbrance Accounting, including budget checking. Creates ledgers for

pre-encumbrances, encumbrances, expenditures, collected revenue and accrued

revenue.

Groups detail items using a tree structure to help users visualize summaries of the

detailed items when reporting, defining rules and performing maintenance.

Provides standard GL accounting functions, including journal entry processing,

consolidations and reporting.

Consolidations can include balances from external ledgers at detailed or summary

levels.

Supports interim (ad hoc) or year-end ledger closing, with the option to post closing

journal entries.

Supports statutory requirements for designated countries where financial reporting

requires conformance to a government-mandated chart of accounts.

Average Daily Balance supports management and statutory balances.

Provides a graphical user interface, table-driven design and effective dating.

Accepts, edits and posts journal entries, reverses accruals or posted journal entries,

and creates an audit trail.

Provides journal processing, such as automatic suspense reversal journal, Open

Item Reconciliation, Copy Down Journal Line Details, and updates to PeopleSoft

Projects.

Spreadsheet journal entry capabilities, including automatic Journal Entry Import via

e-mail, support for InterCompany journals and an Import/Error log.

Journal Generator includes a generic Accounting Entry Definition, a Journal

Generator Template and an Accounting Entry table for non-PeopleSoft systems.

A GL allocation tool supports GL allocations, as well as distribution or allocation of

data from table to table across applications.

GL is allocated by spreading evenly on tree nodes, allowing multiple ranges of

values, pro rata or arithmetic.

Cross-product drill-down identifies the source of accounting transactions outside of

GL.

Supports multicurrency processing, including Economic and Monetary Union

(EMU)/Euro.

Supports Position Accounting.

Document Sequencing supports sequential numbering of transactions in a given

financial system.

Supports value-added tax (VAT) processing for items directly entered into GL.

Provides an optional separate debit and credit structure with entry fields in GL.

Multibook capabilities, including translation within a ledger and support for “in sync”

entries.

Integrated Treasury options support Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)

133.

Provides graphical maps via Web browser for GL processes, including Allocations,

Consolidations, Journal Processing and Ledgers.




Specifications

Platforms

Payables

Manages cash disbursements and related payables.

Supports multiple currencies (including multiple currency payments from a single

bank account), flexible payment policies, cash requirements analysis and planning.

Supports Prepaid Vouchers and Return to Vendor credits.

Maintains payment requirements in real time.

Processes payments selectively by business unit, bank account and other criteria.

Creates and shares vendor information across business units and maintains

regular, one-time and 1099 vendors.

Supports multitier, rule-based and global withholding processes.

Electronic data interchange (EDI) capability supports ANSI X12 and electronic data

interchange for administration, commerce and transport (EDIFACT) datasets.

Performs payment reconciliation.

Performs U.S Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form 1099 processing.

Vendor management includes support for multiple vendor locations, definition of

specific ways of doing business for each location, definition of pricing from and remit

to locations at the location level, definition of vendor attributes (payment terms,

matching controls) at the location level and support for multiple remit to bank

accounts.

A vendor-archiving facility purges vendors from the system and archives them

based on specific criteria.

Includes a journal voucher for correcting journal entries and two types of purchase

order (PO) vouchers (debit voucher and credit voucher).

Supports Sales and Use Tax processing.

Supports electronic funds transfer (EFT) formats, customer-initiated drafts,

automated clearinghouse (ACH) and direct debit payment formats.

Matching capabilities support workflow, include an exchange rate variance function

and offer three receipt awareness options.

Supports integrated Payables/Receivables netting functionality.

An Open Liability Report lists all open liabilities as of a specified date.

Cross-product drill-down features are included.

Globalization support includes document sequencing, multilingual documents,

multibook support and EMU support.




Specifications

Platforms

Receivables

Processes invoices, debit memos and credit memos.

Provides online error correction during batch processing, flags disputed items, and

defines unlimited entry types and reason codes.

Manages cash collection and customer receivables and provides data analysis

supporting cash and credit management.

Performs batch processing, maintains status and payment history for customer

accounts and creates unlimited aging categories.

Payments are entered manually by users or via batch process. Can be configured

for lockbox processing, EDI and EFT.

Supports credit card processing at item and balance levels.

Creates dunning letters.

Creates journal entries at detail or summary levels and provides management report

templates.

Payment interface supports enterprisewide global and localization solutions

associated with lockbox, EDI and bank statement processing.

Supports two methods of cash control and entry: Payment Entry (when payment is

entered/received) and Bank Reconciliation (when payment is reconciled on a bank

statement).

Supports document sequencing.

Supports multibook processing.

Currency conversion supports centrally defined rates, rate types and currency

codes shared with Receivables and other subsystems.

Supports EFT settlement process via direct debit/credit payments.

Supports customer-initiated and vendor-initiated drafts.

Supports global payment formats.

A Payment Predictor auto cash application process handles a group of incoming

payments for items with different currency denominations.

Generates Accounts Receivable/Accounts Payable (AR/AP) Partner reports.

Generates multilingual documents.

Supports contra debit/credit in subsystems for unposting errors with offsetting or

contra debits and credits (entries having reverse signs).

Provides cross-product drill-down.




Specifications

Platforms

Asset Management




Specifications

Platforms

Provides physical asset management.

Complies with tax reporting requirements.

Provides asset inventory support.

Supports asset availability, maintenance and insurance management.

Records the acquisition, depreciation and retirement of capitalized assets.

Manages nontraditional asset information, such as maintenance contracts and

schedules, upgrade options, resale schedules, insurance coverage, replacement

options, budgets and lease terms.

Tracks zero and negative basis assets and intangible assets.

Calculates life-to-date and remaining values.

Maintains unlimited financial depreciation books.

Supports Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) and Adjusted Current Earnings (ACE)

depreciation, and creates depreciation expense caps.

Supports advanced lease accounting, complies with FASB 13 and posts all lease

transactions to the GL.

Supports automatic additions from purchasing/receiving, AP, and project

accounting, and maintenance of comprehensive carrier information for insurance,

licensing and regulation management.

Supports operating leases from the lessee perspective, provides advance-type

lease payments, tracks operating leases and ties operating leases to other leased

assets.

Retires or reinstates operating leases and tracks interim lease rental payments.

Generates a Lease Expiration report to track leases about to expire in the next

30/60/90/120 days, provides footnote disclosures of all lease payments extending

more than one year that cannot be cancelled and provides global verification

validation for lease FASB 13 compliance.

Supports U.S. tax reports, including Bonus Depreciation, Form 4797 (Sales of

Business Property), Form 4562 (Depreciation and Amortization), Form 4626

(Alternative Minimum Tax—Corporation) and various reports (AMT and ACE

retirements) for completing Form 4226.

InterUnit Asset Transfers (IAT) can transfer assets between business units using a

fixed markup percentage or a fixed price for the asset to be recorded on the

receiving location’s books.

Supports monthly declining balance depreciation.

Supports capital acquisition planning.

Can collect physical inventory data (computers, servers, fax machines, printers)

over a network and via third-party IAT asset discovery tools.

Can associate joint venture participant business units with a book profile at the

participant level.

Provides a “what-if” depreciation results inquiry panel.

Can archive and restore data from depreciation and cost tables.

Can export data about assets to third-party property tax software programs.

Two self-service Web applications display a list of assets by business unit and

department and display asset availability over a Web connection.

Transaction loader features perform editing checks on ChartField, business unit and

book values.

Supports multiple languages.

Supports multiple currency processing.

Supports global features including user specified currency rounding Canadian




Specifications

Platforms

Budgeting

Web-enabled budgeting environment.

Internet interface for preparing, reviewing and approving budgets.

Role-based to support different types of budget users.

Notes can be used to further document or justify budgeted items.

Itemized lists provide detailed information on budgeted items.

Supports planning of capital acquisitions.

Calculates budgeted amounts from pre-defined or user-defined formulas.

Budgets at any level within the organization.

Supports budgeting on monthly, quarterly and annual basis.

Provides multidimensional, centralized data storage.

Users can prepare, review and approve budget data from a central location.

Data can be moved between relational databases and multidimensional databases

via PeopleTools Cube Manager.

Provides multidimensional analysis of budget data.

Automatically grants access to budget data via user-defined hierarchy.

The system provides event notices to preparers and reviewers of budget data.

Updates the status of the budget cycle.

Automatically generates personalized work lists to alert Budgeting users to data for

which they are responsible.

Provides historical, actual and budget data from PeopleSoft GL and asset and

depreciation data from PeopleSoft Asset Management.

Users can develop project-based budgets using data from PeopleSoft Projects.

Publish and Subscribe provides employee and position data from PeopleSoft

Human Resources Management (HRMS) to PeopleSoft Budgeting for performing

position budgeting.

Provides real-time translation to and from multiple currencies.




Specifications

Platforms

Expenses

Automates expense reimbursement processes and enables capture and reporting of

spending information.

Users enter data via Internet client, mobile client or personal digital assistant (PDA).

Supports cash advance request processing and tracking.

Users can define expense environment components, such as distance rates,

expense types, expenditure methods, expense locations and spending guidelines.

Delegates authority to submit expense transactions.

Provides flexible approval and auditing of expense management events with e-mail

notification messages to employees and managers.

Processes multicurrency transactions and captures VAT amounts.

Allocates expense sheet or line items among multiple cost centers.

Supports reimbursement to employees or directly to vendors via check, EFT or ACH

transactions on a monthly, weekly and daily basis.

Provides analysis of company information.

Integrates with PeopleSoft Payables, GL, Projects, Billing (via Projects) and

Treasury (bank data), as well as HR and North American Payroll (employee profile

data).

Grants

Browser-based application managing the life cycle of sponsored research, including

proposal generation, transitioning proposals into awards, facilities processing, and

bill generation and reporting.

PeopleSoft’s Grant Management solution includes the following five integrated

applications: Grants, General Ledger, Projects, Billing and Contracts.




Specifications

Platforms

Projects

Via Web, provides an integrated cost management system for enterprise project

control.

Shares project management data with other PeopleSoft applications for billing and

revenue recognition and asset creation.

Integrated with PeopleSoft Contracts, Resource Management, Budgets,

Purchasing, Payables, Inventory, Order Management, Time and Labor,

Time/Expense Traveler, Billing, Receivables, Assets and GL.

Executives, project managers and project team members can view and manipulate

project data to see results of key indicators, receive notification for exceptions and

use pre-defined templates for reporting and analysis.

Offers project billing and revenue recognition methods, including milestones to

trigger events, definition of schedules and support for percent complete.

Project-related adjustments can be made directly in PeopleSoft Billing.

Revenue-related journal entries made in PeopleSoft GL can be integrated into

PeopleSoft Projects.

Offers Project-established commitment control rules addressing budget control and

encumbrance accounting.

Provides a central repository for project-oriented financial, distribution and labor

distribution data.

Centralizes project-related capital costs, assigns and accumulates proceeds and

costs for retiring assets, and supports multiple books.

Users can collect, analyze and report on project-related information, perform what-if

analysis from different points in time, and conduct operational analysis to determine

project profitability and return.

Manages projects incorporating expenditures and revenue in multiple currencies,

and tracks and reports on global joint ventures.

Project status and team member control settings can limit transactions coming into

Projects from PeopleSoft Purchasing, Payables, Inventory and Time/Expense, as

needed.

Integrates with Microsoft Project.

Billing

Automates billing functions and provides customization of invoices in multiple

currencies and languages.

Offers a modular approach for managing billing and adjustments, processing taxes,

generating invoices and creating account distributions.

Supports credit card processing, prepayments on invoices and installments, and

deferred revenue.

Provides an enterprisewide billing information repository.




Specifications

Platforms

Purchasing

Manages the procurement of goods and services.

Online requisition functions include electronic item catalogs and Web-based

requisitions.

Provides interfaces with other PeopleSoft modules and external third-party

requisitioning systems.

Approval processes support requisition approval routing and rejection paths.

Automates sourcing of requisitions into Purchasing orders with user-defined vendor

priorities.

Manages purchase orders (POs), including automated and online PO creation,

approval, dispatch and change order processing.

Automates PO creation from Requisitions, Contract Release, request for quotation

(RFQ) awards, and manufacturing and planning demands.

Vendor contract management supports RFQ bid request, bidding and award

processes. Awarding of an RFQ can trigger the system to create a direct PO or an

enterprisewide vendor contract for use in upcoming purchases.

Supports shipping receipt functionality, including receipt, inspection, Advance

Shipping Notices (ASNs) and Evaluation Receipt Settlement (ERS).

Provides Vendor Returns functionality for returning defective, rejected or obsolete

goods to a supplier.

Procurement Card features support for multiple card transaction formats and

reconciliation and payment processing.

Supports centralized and decentralized purchasing business models.

Vendor management capabilities include support for multiple vendor locations;

definition of specific ways of doing business for each location; definition of pricing;

ordering, returning and remit to locations at the location level; and definition of

vendor attributes (such as dispatch methods, matching controls) at the location

level.

Stores item master information for capture and maintenance of records of the raw

materials, goods and services purchased, including procurement defaults (receiving,

inspection, preferred shipping methods), pricing and vendor sourcing priorities.

Supports multiple languages and currencies, as well as multiple tax methods,

including VAT and sales and use tax.

EDI capabilities support ANSI X12 and EDIFACT datasets.

Provides cross-product, drill-down features.




Specifications

Platforms

Procurement

Sourcing options support vendor selection based on user-defined attributes,

including price, lead time, or priority, as well as splitting purchases every time an

item or commodity is purchased or basing selection on historical sourcing

percentages.

Supports a landed cost calculation. It estimates nonmaterial charges and includes

these estimates with PO creation. Actuals are captured when the invoice is

generated. All landed cost components are included in item inventory cost figures.

Manages vendor contracts for tracking, inquiry and notice of expiration.

Accounts for merchandise exchanges during vendor returns process and includes

recoverable costs or restocking fees with the return. Automatically generates debit

memos.

Supports commitment accounting and budget checking during the procurement

process.




Specifications

Platforms

Contracts

Manages revenue streams, expenses, and resource allocations for operations by

capturing and acting on contractual information for purposes of invoicing and

recognizing revenue.

Manages the contract life cycle, including creation, recording and fulfillment.

Supports multiple revenue and billing scenarios within a single contract. Users can

define specific revenue and billing plans and independently assign plans to

contracts.

Users can recognize shared revenue generated by various products and services,

departments, business units and projects, and users can also reverse or redistribute

revenue for an entire contract or just a portion of a contract.

Sales professionals can renegotiate service fees and consolidate contract lines on

separate contracts prior to contract termination.

Integrates with PeopleSoft Projects and PeopleSoft Resource Management, as well

as document management systems.

Supports the following methods of revenue recognition:

• As Incurred—Revenue is recognized when an activity is initiated and processed.

• Milestone—Fixed revenue amounts are recognized as certain milestones are met.

• Percentage Complete—Revenue is allocated based on project budget or as a

percentage of completed project work.

• Apportionment—A time-based method recognizing a fixed revenue amount over a

pre-defined period.

Supports the following billing methods:

As Incurred—Bills are generated when an activity is completed and processed.

Milestone—Fixed amounts are billed after pre-defined milestones are met.

Percentage Complete—Amount billed is determined by project budget or a

percentage of completed project work.

Deduction Management

Manages deduction processes and integrates with PeopleSoft’s Receivables and

Supply Chain applications.

Provides credit and collection functions for investigating, resolving and analyzing

customer deduction trends and activities.

Supports a deduction load utility from Receivables, deduction search and

maintenance, as well as the attachment of conversations and comments.

Used typically in the consumer packaged good industry, where deductions are

common.




Specifications

Platforms

Global Consolidations

Consolidates financial data from multiple organizations in different locations with

different charts of accounts, currencies and calendars, in real-time.

Uses the PeopleSoft Enterprise Warehouse to centrally store a company’s financial

data in a consistent, standard version.

Resource Management

A module within PeopleSoft’s Enterprise Service Automation (ESA) suite.

Allocates people to project teams based on project requirements and employee

competencies, preferences and availability.

Maintains a database of employee competencies, accomplishments, interests,

preferences, projects and work experience.

Provides views of employee skills.

Finds relative resources using a search and matching engine.

Assigns resources to a customer or projects.

Manages employee schedules, synchronizing a central calendar with individual

employee calendars reflecting vacation time, training and other scheduled events

impacting availability.

Finds projects or service orders matching employee competencies, preferences,

location and availability.

Manages external resource providers, allowing users to route selected types of work

to partners via e-mail or subscription-based Web pages.

Integrates with PeopleSoft Human Resources, Contracts and Projects.

Treasury

Supports cash, dealing and risk management within a corporate treasury

department.

Integrates with other PeopleSoft applications so ERP information relevant to cash,

dealing and risk can be taken directly from source applications.




Specifications

Platforms

Cash Management

Manages banks and counterparties.

Supports enterprise, in-house banking practices.

Maintains counterparty facility contracts.

Supports bank reconciliation in fully automatic, semiautomatic or manual modes.

Provides cash position analysis via PeopleTools Tree Manager.

Supports cash forecasting by pulling data from other modules, such as Deals,

Payables or Receivables.

Supports settlements.

Supports bank statement analysis using EDI 822 statements.

Supports bilateral netting.

Supports EFT payment methods, such as Fedwire or ACH.

Supports multiple levels of payment approvals.

Deal Management

Provides deal capture, management and administration functions.

Provides a deal instrument library.

Automates notification of pending deal activity via Workflow.

Automates review of specified instrument types via Workflow.

Processes inbound deal confirmations online.

Generates outbound confirmation documents.

Provides treasury transaction accounting.

Supports position management.

Supports Exchange Traded Futures and Options.

Includes a Holiday Calendar.

Supports deal accounting.

Supports deal roll-forward functions.

Risk Management

Provides support for instrument and portfolio valuation through third-party vendors,

such as Financial Engineering Associates (FEA).

Maps deal and portfolio data.

Exports data to outside vendor systems, such as JP Morgan’s 415 Value At Risk

solution.

Retrieves real-time revaluation for a specific deal transaction.

Retrieves real-time revaluation for a portfolio.

Supports third-party products for revaluation processing.

Supports FASB 133.

Supports hedge accounting for Financial Accounting Standard 133 (FAS 133) and

International Accounting Standard 39 (IAS 39).

Provides a Risk Repository for data storage.




Specifications

Platforms

Asset Liability Management

Models and simulates business uncertainty to synchronize corporate strategy

across business units.

Forecasts income and portfolio values based on different interest rate assumptions

using stochastic interest rate models and allows users to test alternative hedge

strategies in real time.

Combines forecast assumptions between business units.

Manages investments with embedded options, such as derivatives, and swaps with

prepayment options.

Users select the level of granularity to perform analysis on an instrument-by-

instrument basis.

Funds Transfer Pricing

Calculates margins and aligns management decisions with current market

conditions and Asset Liability Committee Objectives (ALCO).

Generates customized yield curves with third-party and market data to represent an

enterprise’s alternative cost of funds.

Measures interest rate sensitivity and models the way specific customers respond to

interest rate changes.

Optimizes product pricing by predicting future interest rate spreads between product

yields and market rates, and between asset and liability products.

Generates actual or projected cash flows by using product pricing and interest rate

sensitivity models to project the effects of loan prepayments and deposit runoffs on

future cash flows.

Reports rules and methodologies applied to arrive at the funds transfer price.

Risk-Weighted Capital

Calculates charges for expected losses and capital, and reports the effect on

customers, products, channels, business units and time.

Defines and tracks risk based on specific requirements of the institution, including

credit, operational, regulatory and catastrophe.

Defines rates of expected loss and economic capital requirements per risk type.

Projects capital balances and evaluates how new products or markets might affect

capital.

Filters defined subsets of data, so enterprises can assign capital to products,

customers or channels based on credit quality, geography and maturity.

Supports compliance with operational and credit risk components of the Basel

Capital Accord (Basel II).




Specifications

Platforms

Self-Service

eBill Payment

Delivers bills via the Internet.

Enables customers to pay bills, monitor account status and view recent transactions

and invoices on the Web.

eSettlements

Electronic invoice presentation and payment solution allowing users to send and

receive invoices electronically, process payments, issue alerts and resolve disputes.

Allows buyers to extend matching and payment rules to mirror existing invoice-

handling processes.

Tracks receivables.

eSettlements offers two implementation models: Buyer Direct and Business Service

Provider.

Buyer Direct Automates the payables process with the following:

• Electronic invoices via XML, EDI or self-service online entry.

• Online approvals and dispute resolution.

• E-mail notifications and alerts are generated for matching exceptions, disputes and

payments.

• Supplier self-service features include self-service invoices, status inquiries and

contact information maintenance.

• Electronic payments and remittance advice.

Business Service

Provider

Allows many buyers and suppliers to exchange invoices and payments.

Tools for buyers include invoice processing, matching, approvals and payment

creation.

Tools for suppliers include invoice presentment, collections and receivables

management.




Specifications

Platforms

eProcurement

A Web-based system for controlling the purchase of items and services inside and

outside of the enterprise.

Deploys procurement functionality throughout the organization.

Supports supplier relationships as related to procurement activities.

Tracks supplier performance.

Provides information on spending for negotiating contracts with suppliers.

Provides a requestor interface and tracking capabilities supporting the phases of the

request and procurement cycle.

Workflow supports business rules, including commodity and spending-level-based

approval paths, approver delegation and timeouts with visual representation of

workflow route status.

Provides escalation and e-mail notification to support communication and action

around procurement activities.

Supplier access allows requestors to procure products and services via real-time

access to item availability and current pricing from preferred and approved

suppliers, without requiring the purchasing department to be directly involved in the

transaction.

Suppliers maintain the accessible electronic catalogs.

Supports multiple currencies, languages, formats and tax standards.

Provides requestors with relevant external and internal information based on

defined roles.

Controls and tracks the procurement process and monitors supplier performance by

recording the receipt of items and services.

Requestors can purchase catalog items online by using a procurement card.

Integrated with PeopleSoft Purchasing, Payables, GL, Receiving and Asset

Management modules.

Portals

CFO Portal

Provides real-time financial data, analysis, key performance indicators (KPIs) and

alerts to financial personnel and business managers.

A drill-down feature provides performance details.

Integrates with PeopleSoft applications, third-party applications and external

sources via PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal.

Role-based security provides user-specific content and security according to a role-

based level of data access.

Metrics and pagelets are pre-mapped.




Specifications

Platforms

Investor Portal

Publishes standard and nonstandard financial reports, policies, and procedures and

corporate communication to a dashboard portal interface and third-party Web sites

and newsfeeds.

Workflow routing and approval processes manage review associated with external

reporting, policies, procedures, and corporate disclosures.

Supports proactive alerts, version control, edit and comment tracking, and time and

user stamping providing an audit source for regulatory reporting.

Generates financial policies and documents, including SEC filings, with links and

drill-down capabilities.

Provides KPIs and alerts on compliance-related reporting.

Pre-mapped to Multex, a third-party provider of real-time market data. Multex

provides analysis tools, competitive data and content, as well as industry

benchmarks.

Financials Portal Pack

Allows enterprises to provide direct access to transactional systems from pre-

mapped pagelets displaying alerts regarding operational issues.

Information is accessible, based on role.

Users can filter and search for information by selecting from different variables.

The data is displayed on the Enterprise Portal home page.

Analytic Applications

Enterprise Performance Management

A product suite of integrated analytic applications and tools supporting strategic and

operational decision-making.

Delivers “decision support mission” management reports (culled from data within

and outside of ERP systems) via Web browser.

An Enterprise Warehouse provides a main data repository for analytic information,

online analytical processing (OLAP), Crystal Reports, nVision and Web-based

reporting.

Integrated Activity-Based Management applications written in PeopleTools convert

cost data into activity-oriented profitability reporting.

An Enterprise Scorecard measures and reports KPIs from role-specific

perspectives.

Provides a set of Financial Insight interactive, multidimensional financial reports,

delivered via Web browser.




Specifications

Platforms

Activity-Based Management

Determines process, product and service-related costs and identifies profitability to

support cost and profit analysis.

Recognizes the cause-and-effect relationship between cost and behavior.

Identifies and prioritizes opportunities for process improvement.

Determines the economic impact of strategic decisions about resources, activities,

products, services, customers and channel costs.

Forecasts demand and calculates amount of resources needed to meet it,

supporting the budgeting process.

Analytic Forecasting

Provides a systematic process to create forecasts supporting business planning.

Integrates statistics-based volume trends to ensure sufficient capacity is available to

meet demand, and to plan for future capital and labor requirements.

Alternate scenarios can be tested to evaluate process re-engineering plans.

Statistical models can be applied on historical time series in the data warehouse to

test forecasts.

Issues alerts when conditions exceed user-defined thresholds.

Multidimensional and seasonal forecasting is supported by showing the intersection

of several factors, such as sales volumes sold through various distribution channels.

External forecasts can be imported and used as variables in causal forecasting

methods.

Enterprise Scorecard

A strategic analysis tool measuring performance in multiple perspectives, including

financial; customer; and internal process, learning, and growth; as well as an

unlimited number of user-defined perspectives.

Can use enterprisewide information in calculations and analysis.

Can be used to set targets at corporate, department and individual levels to monitor

performance against goals.

Performance indicator calculations can be based on data from the PeopleSoft

Enterprise Warehouse, and PeopleSoft or third-party analytic applications.

Enterprise Warehouse

Consolidates data from business applications, and provides reporting and analysis

tools.

Financials Insight includes pre-defined analytic templates for role-based analysis.

The templates support metrics to measure customer, product and channel

profitability; assess cash flow and market value trends; and monitor actual vs.

budgeted expenses.




Specifications

Platforms

Financials Warehouse

Provides pre-packaged measures, metrics and analysis templates for specific roles

and industries.

Publish and subscribe capabilities provide relevant information to end-user

desktops.

Organizes information into several dimensions, including business unit, account,

time, department and transaction party.

Measured and derived metrics include debt-to-equity ratio, debt-to-assets ratio,

times interest earned, quick asset turnover, working capital-to-assets ratio,

receivables turnover and payables turnover.

Enterprise Service Automation Warehouse

A central data repository for service organizations (enterprise program management

offices and professional service organizations) providing view of operating costs.

Collects data from transaction systems (such as, financials, workforce, customer

relationship management [CRM]) and delivers role-based, pre-defined metrics

allowing managers to analyze resource allocation, travel and expense costs, and

contract costs.

Project Portfolio Management

Enables executives to collaborate in project and investment decision-making

processes.

Prioritizes initiatives based on internal goals and pre-defined metrics such as cost,

risk and return on investment (ROI).

Provides proactive notification of project issues or phases or activities needing

attention so enterprises can adjust project activity and planning in real time.

Business Planning and Budgeting Solution

Integrated Business Planning and Budget applications enable a collaborative

process for top-down strategic planning with forecasting and bottom-up budgeting.

Simulates plans (for example, head count changes, capital investment) before

implementation, and uses collaborative forecasting to manage budget in real time.

A rolling forecasting function supports long- and short-term planning by forecasting

results using historical data and updated plans reflecting current business models.

Provides a collaborative environment, role-based access and interaction with plans

applicable to certain roles.

What-if analysis tools measure impact of different business scenarios.

Employees can use multidimensional analysis tools to analyze data related to their

job function.



Analysis

PeopleSoft’s Financial Management Solutions portfolio provides traditional transactional and operationalfinancial applications supporting a global enterprise, EPM tools for evaluating performance, as well as aportal environment to support access by authorized internal and external users. These components,coupled with the vendor’s ESA suite, form what PeopleSoft calls a “financial management blueprint.” Theblueprint defines a framework enabling enterprises to automate traditional financial transactions, usesperformance management tools to strategically manage the business and includes certified Hackett best-practice business processes. The systems can provide line-of-business managers and stakeholders withaccess to a real-time, portal serving up financial data.

The blueprint uses three application components to help enterprises establish a financial managementsystem with integrated analytic tools supporting strategic financial management for an enterprise:

• The core operational system consists of the traditional transaction functions, such as GL, Payablesand Receivables, Asset Management and Treasury Management.

• ESA helps organizations control their spending on services delivery and internal projects.

• EPM provides tools for measuring performance and strategic operations management.

ESA

ESA consists of integrated transaction and performance management applications designed to manageservice costs by automating the buying and management of internal and external services. ERP IIvendors have been responding to internal IT service management needs as a result of the emergence ofvendors touting resource management, budgeting, internal chargeback & billing, time reporting, andproject tracking and communication functions in the Project Portfolio Management (PPM) market.PeopleSoft’s version of this type of system includes applications targeting professional serviceorganizations (PSOs), companies with professional service branches and internal service organizations.ESA applications include PeopleSoft Resource Management, Services Procurement, Project Automation,Contract Management, and Travel and Expense Management. In combination, these tools manage aninternal resource pool for allocating appropriate resources to projects, managing procurement of externalor contingent workforces, and helping control the processes and costs related to internal projects.

ESA Process Integration

Where best-of-breed (BOB) or specialty PPM tool vendors start to show their weaknesses in theirsolutions is in the areas of integration with other enterprise systems. These vendors can provide hooksand integration to CRM, Sales Force Automation (SFA), Finance and HR, but not at a level emulating thatof ERP II suites. ERP II vendors by nature provide applications sharing the same code base on auniversal application platform. PeopleSoft’s ESA integrates with PeopleSoft HR to manage resources andto evaluate competency and skill levels. It also integrates with PeopleSoft CRM and SFA to provideinsight into incoming project requests and proposals, to confirm them as valid projects, and to matchresources against them. ESA can integrate with PeopleSoft SCM if project completion requires productdeliveries. It can also communicate with PeopleSoft’s financial applications for managing billing andrevenue recognition, internal chargeback and generation of accounting entries.

ESA Measurement

The ESA Warehouse and PeopleSoft’s PPM piece, in combination or separately, provide reports, metricsand analytic tools related to ESA’s resource management, project management and expensemanagement functions. The ESA Warehouse, a component of PeopleSoft’s EPM suite, provides metrics



and analytic tools measuring and helping users evaluate and control service costs. The warehouseprovides different data views, including real-time expenses and costs at any point along the approvalprocess. Accounting entries can also be viewed. The warehouse also provides a view of forecasts ofresource supply and demand to help evaluate training requirements.

PeopleSoft PPM, which is included as part of the EPM suite, focuses on project planning. The applicationenables users to prioritize projects based on financial goals, such as ROI, net present value (NPV),payback period and internal rate of return (IRR), and it can help align projects to key strategic businessobjectives. PPM can be used in conjunction with other functions of ESA to help staff and manageprojects, allowing users to analyze ongoing projects and respond and adjust to project issues via real-timeredirection, addition or adjustment of resource allocations.

EPM

PeopleSoft’s EPM suite provides analysis and metrics supporting data collected in its financial, CRM,SCM and HRMS suites. EPM provides data collection, storage and analysis logic to help users evaluatebusiness performance at operational and strategic levels. The Enterprise Warehouse uses ETL logic toaccept and store data from PeopleSoft and non-PeopleSoft applications using pre-defined data tables. Byintegrating with an Operational Data Store, a Data Warehouse and application-specific data marts, theEnterprise Warehouse organizes data to support business intelligence. The Operational Data Storeprovides current operational reports and analysis, and The Enterprise Data Warehouse offers historicaldata and trend analysis. The data marts—the Financial Warehouse for the financial applications and theESA Warehouse for the ESA suite—provide 200+ pre-defined, role-based metrics organized intomultidimensional schemas and report templates for analysis of business processes. The data marts alsoprovide 400 pre-defined ETL maps to PeopleSoft Financial data to move data from operational systems tothe operational data store. The Financial Warehouse provides financial and profitability measurement,including balance sheet analysis and metrics, such as asset utilization, budget variance and debt leverageanalysis. Other features include profit-and-loss analysis with measures such as expense and revenuevariance, income statement analysis and operating profit ratios. Profitability analyses can includemeasures such as customer ranking, product analysis and expense analysis.

Business Planning and Budgeting

PeopleSoft’s Business Planning and Budgeting provides planning and execution in a collaborativeenvironment, allowing users to link budgets to corporate strategic goals. Thus, users can develop a short-or long-term business plan accounting for variables such as resource allocation. The Business Planningcomponent provides business modeling and forecasting logic, as well as analytic capabilities and what-iffeatures, to help users evaluate different scenarios and examine potential impact on the business.Business Planning logic allows users to evaluate plans based on performance metrics accounting forsome nonfinancial factors, such as improved customer satisfaction and streamlined internal processing.The Business Planning with Budgeting components are integrated, so the plans remain in sync with thebudget, and so the budget is maintained. If changes occur in the business plan, the budget isautomatically adjusted to reflect the plan change, thus showing the impact that plan changes have on thebusiness.

Embedded Analytics

As a complement to the EPM suite, PeopleSoft provides embedded analytics in its transactionapplications. Embedded analytics, delivered as part of PeopleTools, provide alerts triggered as part of abusiness process, and also contextual, multidimensional analysis. For example, embedded analytics can



be incorporated into the Accounts Receivable application to provide a real-time view of data, such as totalof outstanding receivables, days sales outstanding or customers with outstanding payments.

Financial Process Integration

PeopleSoft’s financial applications provide financial process integration and touch points to multipleapplications and processes. In the Requisition to Payment process, there is a supported process fromgoods receipt to invoice approval to final payment. The Planning and Execution process supports the useof a scorecard using financial and nonfinancial data to align resources, plans and strategic objectives.Strategic planning is one element of the planning process integrated with budgeting, the results of whichbecome part of the day-to-day transactional system—thus ensuring process support in which operationalplans match strategic goals. PeopleSoft’s Internet Architecture also supports process integration. TheOpen Integration Framework enables integration among PeopleSoft applications and third-party software.The PeopleSoft AppConnect tool supports application integration, access to a portal environment andaccess to performance management functions.

Pricing

PeopleSoft prices its software under its Enterprise Licensing model based on size of a customer’senterprise. Business metrics define the size of the enterprise. For financials, annual revenue, operatingbudget and assets under management are considered in the enteprise licensing model. Each contract hasan Expansion of Rights Clause guaranteeing future license pricing if the customer expands past, pre-agreed-upon size thresholds. In exchange for a size-based price and expansion clause, PeopleSoft givesits customers the right to deploy and use as many servers, users and workstations as they need within thedefined enterprise size. The Enterprise License includes a right to use the software over the Web viacorporate intranet or extranet.

GSA Pricing

Yes.

Competitors

PeopleSoft competes with other ERP II vendors, including SAP, Oracle and J.D. Edwards. Each of thesevendors provides a collaborative computing environment allowing enterprises to share information withinternal and external users, develops vertical-industry strategies, and competes, to varying degrees, inone or more of the four market ERP II domains (process manufacturing, discrete manufacturing, asset-intensive and service-intensive). PeopleSoft’s financial applications and performance management suitecompetes specifically in the service-intensive domain.

SAP

SAP competes in the financial applications market, providing operational, tactical and strategicapplications for multinational enterprises engaged in global business operations. Its R3 Financialsportfolio offers standard financial accounting and management functions, but the vendor also offerscorporate financial management applications, such as Investment Management, Treasury, Leasing andAsset Management, Real Estate and Joint Venture Accounting. A suite of Strategic EnterpriseManagement applications delivers strategic planning and simulation functions, a set of tools for evaluatingcorporate performance, and functions enabling communication with shareholders. SAP also offersmultinational capabilities—a differentiator over some North America-centric financial software providers.

Oracle



Oracle competes in the financial applications market, offering a financial portfolio supporting traditionaltransaction-based accounting functions, as well as multinational financial business processing, includingstrategic planning; expense, cash and asset management; financial consolidation; project accounting;property and lease management; treasury management; and billing and cash collection. Traditionally,Oracle targeted large, multinational companies, but like other large enterprise software companies, thevendor is now also targeting midsize companies. Oracle complements its strategic and tactical financialsolutions via Financial Intelligence software offering decision-support capabilities specifically for financialanalysis. This set includes OLAP and multidimensional analysis, a Balanced Scorecard, PerformanceAnalyzer and Activity-based Management. Oracle offers a suite of multinational functions supporting 44different countries in 30 languages.

Lawson

Lawson’s financial suite supports corporate financial and account management, enterprise budgeting,business planning and treasury management applications. The architecture and complementary toolsenable data sharing, analysis and self-service. Lawson’s analytic tools, such as eScoreCard, allowcustomers to manage corporate resources strategically and tactically. Its Financial Information Centerprovides self-service access to key indicators and balances for budgets, actuals and ratios, as well asinquiry into GL and Activity-Based Management. A partnership with Hyperion provides access toHyperion’s Essbase OLAP engine and Pillar budgeting system, and an alliance with XRT enablesLawson’s Cash Management application to support corporate treasury management. The vendor alsorelies heavily on partnerships for performance management and some complementary functionality,whereas some competitors provide these features as native functions. Lawson’s financial functionalityremains strong for North American enterprises, but its global support is weaker than that of itscompetitors. Lawson, however, maintains a strong vertical market focus.

J.D. Edwards (JDE)

JDE offers financial functionality and is building performance management capabilities via internaldevelopment and external partnerships. The vendor is particularly focused on delivering applicationssupporting ERP II vertical industries. JDE’s financial applications support financial accounting and assetmanagement functions for midsize and divisional units of large companies. OneWorld Financials includesglobal capabilities; added management applications; and extension of accounting and financial processesto other business functions, such as manufacturing and product configuration. An Enterprise AssetManagement application suite enables asset-intensive businesses to track corporate assets, such asinventory and property. The suite supports fixed asset management, equipment maintenancemanagement, service and warranty, and property management.

Great Plains

Great Plains Software established a strong reputation in the midmarket, and its acquisition by Microsoftcould solidify its future. Great Plains provides a midsize enterprise software solution set of integratedapplications suites for accounting and finance, project accounting, production management and resourceplanning, distribution, SCM, CRM, HR, retail management and e-commerce. The Microsoft Great PlainseEnterprise Solution includes the eEnterprise Accounting and Finance, Business Analytics, and ProjectAccounting suites, as well as solutions for SCM, Manufacturing, HR and Field Service. Unlike the largeERP II players, Great Plains does not currently offer strategic management or treasury managementfunctions.

Hyperion



Hyperion is not a provider of core, transactional financial management applications, but rather a majorplayer in the business performance segment of the financial applications market. The companyestablished a reputation as a provider of business analysis and performance measurement tools. ItsEssbase and Analysis Tools create the analytic platform of Hyperion’s solutions. Essbase integrates datafrom heterogeneous sources, allowing organizations to perform high-level analytical processing ofcollected, consolidated data. Analytical tools support Essbase. An Analyzer provides Web-based analysisvia Essbase. An Analysis Portal provides role-based access for user-specific analysis. Financial andBusiness Performance Management applications enable executives and managers to conduct dataanalysis and reporting. The Performance Management tools include a Business Modeling applicationallowing managers to evaluate financial plans supporting strategic decision making. A Web-basedPerformance Scorecard tool helps enterprises track their strategy relative to specific corporate goals.

Strengths

Process Integration

PeopleSoft supports process integration in its financial applications, as well as in its entire enterprisesoftware suite. PeopleSoft’s AppConnect solution (consisting of its Enterprise Portal, EnterpriseWarehouse and Integration Broker) allows facilities to connect applications and support business processintegration. The Integration Broker helps users create real-time collaborative business processes andworks with PeopleSoft’s Internet Architecture to handle routing and transformation of data betweenapplications and support enterprise-centric and inter-enterprise business process integration. PeopleSoftis certified by The Hackett Group for support of best-practice business practices in PeopleSoft’s FinancialManagement Solutions (FMS) applications—Version 8.4.

Performance Management

PeopleSoft’s performance management applications provide strategic and tactical analysis and reportingtools to measure and act on enterprise performance goals. PeopleSoft’s EPM suite provides real-timeviews of cross-application enterprise data. An Enterprise Warehouse, application-specific analytics, anenterprise scorecard and activity-based management functions provide tools for evaluating the success oftactical and strategic activities. The Financial Warehouse, a subset of PeopleSoft’s EnterpriseWarehouse, provides pre-defined, roles-based financial metrics and report templates. Activity-basedplanning and management functions calculate and analyze process and product costs to determineprofitability. These activity-based functions also manage costs from a strategic perspective, forecastingdemand and calculating the resources needed to meet the demand.

Services Focus

PeopleSoft provides functionality specific to the services-intensive domain, particularly in financialservices, higher education, professional services, and public sector. Its ESA offering, for example, isdesigned to control service spending and support service management for customers, suppliers andemployees in service-based industries. A Grants application manages processes related to sponsoredresearch—from proposal creation through billing. A higher-education solution includes support forfinancial, HR, student administration and procurement.

Inherent Integration With Other PeopleSoft Applications

PeopleSoft Financial applications are integrated with other PeopleSoft solutions, including HRMS, SupplyChain and CRM products. Integration is supported for payroll processing, personnel administration andbenefits administration.

Financial BOB Solution



PeopleSoft’s Financial Management Solutions (and its HR products) represent the two application areasin which the vendor has the deepest experience. Thus, its financial management functionality andfeatures are robust and significantly support a typical enterprise’s financial management processes. Itsfinancial applications can be deployed without investing in an end-to-end enterprise suite, and PeopleSoftprovides a rapid implementation program called PeopleSoft Mid-Market Solutions for $50 million to $500million organizations not needing all functions offered in a more comprehensive financial system rollout. Itincludes an unlimited user license for PeopleSoft applications, training and implementation services at afixed price. Aside from the integration benefits between different PeopleSoft application sets, PeopleSoftsolutions support computing platforms from Microsoft and IBM, as well as a variety of Unix platforms.PeopleSoft also supports a wide range of databases, including Microsoft Structured Query Language (MSSQL) Server, Oracle8i and 9i, Sybase SQL Server and IBM DB2.

Limitations

Functional Gaps

PeopleSoft Deal Management supports debt and investment management. It allows users to build theirown financial instruments from pre-packaged instrument types. The current release of Deal Management,however, does not support equity as a base instrument type.

Some Features Not Native: Dependent on Partnerships

PeopleSoft only provides enterprise asset management and property management via partnership withMRO Software. MRO provides strategic asset management solutions and partners to offer operationaland financial enterprise asset management for PeopleSoft customers.

Upgrade Issues for Pre-7.5 Release Current Customers

Existing PeopleSoft customers running versions of PeopleSoft applications prior to release 7.5 may needto consider application platform migrations and costs associated with upgrading to PeopleSoft’s InternetArchitecture to take full advantage of the vendor’s latest innovations in application functionality, self-service, and process and third-party application integration.

7.5 Support Discontinued

PeopleSoft is discontinuing its support for release 7.5.

Customers still running 7.5 can purchase a limited extension of support (purchase extension this year forone year) from PeopleSoft. Customers can also use service partners, TomorrowNow or Crestone, forextended 7.5 support and maintenance.

Insight

PeopleSoft is extending its financial applications beyond just providing transaction and operational controlfor multinational enterprises by adding tools supporting strategic financial management of the enterprise.Its Open Integration Framework and AppConnect solution supports process integration, collaborativeenvironments and performance management. These capabilities, in combination with support for service-intensive industries, make it a strong contender in the ERP II space in its selected domains. Customerscurrently running PeopleSoft versions earlier than release 7.5 should consider the costs associated withupgrading to PeopleSoft’s Internet Architecture. Many of PeopleSoft’s latest innovations are based on thisarchitecture, and it is a required migration for supporting the latest innovations that PeopleSoft touts in itsfinancial management applications and its other offerings.

PeopleSoft Financial Management · PDF filePeopleSoft Financial Management Applications Summary PeopleSoft maintains a strong position in the financial applications market with portal-based

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