Oracle Updates Treasury Module

The upgraded module, which is part of the company's financial applications suite, is slated to ship by the end of next quarter, Oracle executives said.

The Oracle Treasury financial module is specifically intended for use at large corporate treasury departments, which typically manage and monitor millions of dollars' worth of cash, make investment decisions based on interest rates and currency exchanges, and execute sizable transactions in currency markets.

Because of the monetary amounts involved, minutes-long transaction delays can translate into hundreds of thousands of dollars. Oracle Treasury now will enable treasurers to see the realtime status of their hedge funds and cash flows throughout the company. The enhanced module also will deliver more detailed reporting of corporate cash positions and allow users to comply more easily with a variety of financial regulations.

One such regulation is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which mandates that the person validating large deals be different from the person entering them into the system. Two others, Financial Accounting Standard (FAS) 133 and International Accounting Standard (IAS) 39, require the disclosure and accounting of derivatives,swapping fixed interest rates for variable ones, for example, or locking in rates through long-term contracts.

"We're now adding the ability for treasurers to see in realtime the status of their hedges and the underlying items that they're trying to hedge," said Sally Screven, senior director of applications development for financial applications at Oracle, Redwood Shores, Calif. "Now, treasurers can see cash flow across divisions and even drill down to the source of the transactions that make up those cash flows without having to wait for someone to give them that information. They can do it themselves."

Oracle Treasury, which covers cash management, risk management and treasury yield management, is priced at $24,995 per user, with a four-user minimum.