An excerpt from Chapter 3 from the OneStream Financial Close Handbook by Ryan Connors, Kelly Darren, Jessica McAlpine, Michael Malandra, and Mike Queeney.

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Understanding Account Reconciliation Projects

In the fall of 2016, I was asked by Peter Fugere to implement a new OneStream MarketPlace solution called Reconciliation Control Manager, or RCM for short. Eventually, the solution’s name was officially changed to Account Reconciliations. This solution was combined with Transaction Matching to become OneStream Financial Close, the MarketPlace solution that exists today.

Although the look and feel of the solution has changed, the core functionality has not. When data is imported into OneStream and loaded to Financial Reporting, Account Reconciliations can leverage that Stage data to create Reconciliations that help a company to identify and correct any errors before internal or external auditors review the financial information.

The Concept of Project Phases

When discussing the phases of a project, we are not referring to a phased rollout. In other words, this does not mean that Corporate will go live on Account Reconciliations first, followed by North America, Central America, South America, and Europe. When we discuss the phases of an Account Reconciliation project, we are referring to the entire project itself. This is then broken down into groups of activities that will help the Project Team manage the implementation. These phases are meant to be a group of tasks that need to be completed for the project to proceed smoothly. Typically, companies will need to move activities from phase to phase because the activity will not be completed while the Users are available for the project. The goal is to complete all the tasks in each phase before any project downtime.

An Account Reconciliation project can be run like any other Consolidation or Planning project. The technical complexity may be less involved than the aforementioned projects, but the timeline can be longer. An Account Reconciliation project needs to be more flexible because Users may not be entirely dedicated to the project and have other responsibilities. In other words, Users have a day job that will take priority. Sometimes, this priority means Users are available only 50% of the month; sometimes, Users are available only 25% or 10% of the month. It is very important to schedule tasks according to Users’ availability. After all, for a successful implementation, Users are your partners in all OneStream projects.

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Note: Account Reconciliation Users typically have close-related tasks to complete in a very specific timeframe. User Acceptance Testing (UAT) should then be completed before Users become unavailable for the project – usually between month-end closes. If UAT cannot be completed in a quarter-end month like March, then UAT should be pushed out to April. This may also cause you to move UAT from Phase 2 to Phase 3.

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By assuming your End-User will have other obligations, your Account Reconciliation project may have some downtime while those Users are completing their month-end close tasks. Breaking the project into four distinct phases is the best way to ensure that we can get the most out of the Project Team while they are available for the project.

The phases will change slightly, depending on whether a Consolidation project has been (or will be) completed. This is because the Account Reconciliations MarketPlace Solution configuration is dependent on the items that would have been built for a Consolidation project.

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Note: Due to Sarbanes-Oxley rules, Account Reconciliations is a tremendous risk control that can be easily configured for any company using OneStream. Consolidation and Account Reconciliation projects both leverage Dimensions, Time profiles, Cubes, FX rates, Workflow Profiles, data sources, and Transformation Rules, and these are just the basic objects. More advanced items – such as Business Rules, Task Scheduler, and Data Management Processes – can also be leveraged.

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If a Consolidation project has not been completed, the Account Reconciliation project will be broken down into four phases in this manner:

Phase One:

• Discovery
• Pre-Project Planning
• Requirements and Design Session
  — General Application Build Activities
  — Project Team/Key Stakeholders Introduction
  — Timeline
  — Project Management
  — Scope Discussion
• Key Stakeholders sign-off on Configuration Settings
• Design Document Created
• Review Design and Client Sign-off

Phase Two

• Build Tasks
• Key Stakeholders sign-off on Build and User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
• UAT
• Key Stakeholders sign-off on UAT

Phase Three

• User Training
• Parallel(s)

Phase Four

• Key Stakeholders sign-off Go-Live
• Go-Live

If a Consolidation project has been (or will be) completed, the milestones for the Account Reconciliation project will be broken down into four phases in this manner:

Phase One

• Discovery
• Pre-Project Planning
• Requirements and Design Session
  — Project Team/Key Stakeholders Introduction
  — Timeline
  — Project Management
  — Scope Discussion
• Key Stakeholders sign-off on Configuration Settings
• Design Document Created
• Review Design and Client Sign-off

Phase Two

• Build Tasks
• Key Stakeholders sign-off on Build and UAT
• User Acceptance Testing
• Key Stakeholders sign-off on UAT

Phase Three

• User Training
• Parallel(s)

Phase Four

• Key Stakeholders sign-off Go-Live
• Go-Live

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To dig into these phases in greater depth, and so much more to do with OneStream Financial Close, check out the OneStream Financial Close Handbook

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