As a response to strong and ever-rising demand for automation capabilities from its customers, Oracle recently announced that it is updating its Cloud EPM suite.
It is set to feature more streamlined processes for logging and tracking transactions as well as enhanced AI analytics.
“Organizations at large are really looking to us to help them to improve the speed and accuracy of the business processes,” said Juergen Linder, senior VP of Saas marketing at Oracle, “and really weeding out those mundane, really non-value add tasks as much as possible.”
There tends to be thousands of unclassified transactions within an enterprise, which can lead to skewing data in the process of building reports. Working out that data manually can – always is? – an arduous task.
That’s why leaders in tech have been seeking out fresh ways to consolidate data in order to carry out clearer and better analysis. And to carry it out in a way that gives insight into better supplier relationships, contract governance, compliance, and category planning.
This trend has led some in the business to nickname it as “hyperautomation.”
Whether it be artificial intelligence, machine learning, process automation, the market for this type of tech is lucrative. In fact, by next year it is set to hit close to $600 billion – up from $532 billion this year.
So let’s unpack Oracle’s update bundle and show some of them off. 
Faster transaction processing
Oracle is adding an extra component called Procurement Spend Classification. It uses machine learning capabilities to automatically categorize business transactions as well as provide better insight into the spending patterns of an enterprise.
This can help enterprises automate expense categories, which currently require manual tracking. “The usage of natural language processing (NLP) and automated ontologies could save massive amounts of time for enterprises,” said R Wang, the founder of Constellation Research.
Enhanced invoice accuracy
It’s common for enterprises to use suppliers that have their own different capabilities in terms of invoicing. What this does is inflate process expenses as well as increase the likelihood of inconsistencies.
In response, Oracle is adding Intelligent Document Recognition (IDR) in order to increase the accuracy of the scanning of invoices. “Now, employees have the possibility to see the accuracy rate by supplier and each (invoice) attribute,” added Juergen, “helping them to uncover the opportunities where there’s really room for improvement, like adjusting an image quality or the configuration of the invoice.”
Better management spotlights
In order to double down on better business insights from financial and operational data, Oracle is releasing a new functionality called Intelligent Performance Management Insights (shortened to IPM Insights).
“IPM analyzes large amounts of financial and operational data to identify and highlight patterns,” said Juergen, “many of which may not be immediately apparent to humans, such as a tendency to over- or under-forecast key metrics every period.
“This enables finance professionals to spend less time chasing and analyzing data, and more time acting on valuable insights and opportunities.” 
Automated journals
Designed to ease the management of journals, which gather data on transactions and business events, Oracle is adding Enterprise Journals to Oracle Fusion EPM, which carries automation capabilities.
“It also provides a single place to manage and track journals,” added Juergen, “while prebuilt templates and workflows streamline the journal entry process and further reduce the potential for errors.”
