A Review of
Oracle Small Business Suite By Geni Whitehouse, CPA

Oracle Small Business Suite Product Tour

The following article is designed to walk you through some of the look and feel and functionality of Oracle Small Business Suite. The objective is to provide prospective purchasers the opportunity to learn a little bit about the product before taking that next big step of contacting a sales representative. Hopefully, this information will help you pre-qualify the product and determine whether it is a reasonable candidate for consideration.

Remote Entry of  Expenses

In Oracle Small Business Suite, expense reports can be entered  by employees from remote locations via the Internet.  The expense transactions have no accounting impact until they are approved by someone with appropriate authority. 

When expenses are first entered, their totals remain in an unapproved expense account and are available for review by a supervisor. 

Individual items can be approved, edited or rejected by the supervisor.  

If edited, a separate line item is added to reflect the change.

Once expenses are approved, a payables invoice is created automatically and amounts are reflected in the general ledger.  Only approved items are available for payment.

Synchronization of Meetings and Events with Microsoft Outlook

Since Oracle Small Business Suite is a web based solution, it can also be used to coordinate schedules across multiple locations.  Resource availability can be checked by event and e-mailed invitations can be generated as well.  For small companies who have not purchased Microsoft exchange, this provides a great way for remote employees to stay connected.  Events can also be synchronized with Microsoft Outlook and other products and devices.  

Event scheduling is straightforward 

and attendee availability can be viewed instantly.

Remote Time and Billing Entry  

Service companies typically have teams of resources assigned to different jobs at different locations. Allowing remote resources to record time from these locations speeds the billing process and also improves accuracy for these employees.  Oracle Small Business Suite provides a simple time entry  screen with job tracking capabilities. 

 In addition, the product is priced so that "limited access" user rights can be purchased at a reduced price for employees who just need to enter their time and expenses.  

You can also keep track of time spent on projects using the time tracking portion of Oracle SBS.  

The stopwatch operates in a separate window which you can access while you are working in other applications on your computer.

Pressing the submit button adds the line item to your time sheet.

Access for Accountants  

Every company that purchases Oracle Small Business Suite is given a license for their accountant's use in accessing their information.  Since the information is already on the web, all they need is a special password and authorization to get to the data.  

Accountant's View of Information

For years, accountants have been backing up client transactions, making adjusting journal entries, and then backing up the data on a diskette or CD for entry back into the client's system. There is typically a period of time where the client is unable to enter normal transactions while he is awaiting the return of the adjusted data.  Oracle's solution is so much more efficient. Both users can access the same information and the accountant can customize his view of the information he accesses, without changing the user's view.  In addition, all transactions are posted real time by the accountant with no loss of work for the company.

Reporting Capabilities

More than 100 pre-defined reports are available, many of these provide drill down capabilities.  

In addition, every role has a predefined "dashboard" view that provides a quick snapshot of key information.  Here is the kind of information a sales manager might want to see when he accesses the system. 

Customization

This product allows full customization - everything can be changed from colors, to field names, to position of fields on the form.  

Weaknesses - Oracle Small Business Suite is certainly not without problems – as with any top product, Oracle SBS contains weaknesses, missing features, missing modules and shortcomings. We have compiled a detailed list of these weaknesses, including screen-by-screen evidence of some of the key weaknesses. Click here if you are interested in learning about Oracle SBS' weaknesses.

______________

Read our Mission Statement
Read our Disclosure Statement
Read our Disclaimer Statement