Quest enjoyed this Quest Experience Week presentation from Karen Brown, Senior Principal Product Manager at JD Edwards and Larry Furino, JD Edwards Practice Director, Global Software.

Brown kickstarted the presentation with a compelling question — why does innovation really matter in financials? If it does matter, how do we take advantage of the unique ability to innovate and optimize financials processes? New technology allows JD Edwards to rethink how processes have occurred in the past. Brown says, “If we rethink how we have always done things, good things happen.”

Transferring info from the spreadsheet

“When it comes to finance, everyone still loves the spreadsheet,” she adds. The question that has been plaguing users for a long time is this: How can JD Edwards quickly and easily lift financial data from your trusty spreadsheet to the Journal Entry application?

Orchestrator Studio facilitates a data transfer via orchestrations, which are essentially a set of steps, defined by your parameters within Orchestrator Studio, that JD Edwards EnterpriseOne will use to perform a business process. It executes many of the steps for the user and eliminates a long list of tedious tasks.

Steps it takes to transport data:

• Open Journal Entry application
• Press the “Add” button
• Enter header information
• Load detail into grid, which you can easily import from Excel
• Press “OK”
• Wait

Spreadsheet Writeback is the tool JD Edwards maximizes to give users the familiar Excel look and feel so they don’t feel as though they’re starting with nothing. You can work offline, and the software still integrates with any JD Edwards data and validates it in real time.

Commonly used integrations include the following:

• General ledger
• Accounts receivable
• Accounts payable
• Fixed assets
• Manufacturing
• Sales order
• Procurement
• Real estate

Brown argues that better data equals better decision making for a company and says that Orchestrator plays a key role in launching financial projects that involve complex data transfers. “We don’t need to rely on IT anymore to create these integrations.” With more power in the hands of business analysts, you’ll need to waste fewer developer hours.

Resolving batch errors

When you need to review batch errors, you can access data right when and where you need it with JD Edwards modules. The following are the steps to follow when reviewing batch errors:

• Update batch from Batch Review
• Review all your errors in one place within Work Center
• Review PDF from Work with Submitted Jobs
• Go to Work with Batches

However, if the batch was posted by a scheduler, follow these steps:

• Update batch from Batch Review
• Go to Work with Batches
• Wait for IT to deliver PDF with errors

Karen notes that you should use this very powerful application with JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Cafe One. An especially opportune time for JD Edwards updates includes a period end, when you need to change a company’s current period.

Automatic Clearing Account Recon

Let the system take care of this time-consuming clearing account process for you, and the only manual processes you’ll have to worry about are some exceptions.

You can perform the clearing account process through a short series of steps:

• Create and post transactions
• Run versions of Automated Account Recon by account type
• Run different version based on account type that you plan to reconcile

“[This recon process] will really help with that EOM reconciliation and other items that you would spend hours on.”

For more details about which clearing account recon process would best benefit your business and to enjoy several live demos, take a look at this JD Edwards Financials webinar presentation! We’re also excited to learn more about financials at COLLABORATE 18, April 22-26, 2018.