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OneStream

OneStream (EPM software), explained for the finance team deciding whether to buy it.

Constancia, an EPM consultancy, is an official OneStream partner with 58 implementations behind us and UK based consultants.

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What OneStream does

  • Uniquely unified

    1 platform for the entire finance function.

    Close, consolidate, reconcile, plan and guide operational units all from 1 place. No data wrangling and no reconciling systems, just finance doing its best work.

  • AI built in

    AI built for finance from the start.

    Forecast faster, scenario plan in real time and catch risks before they become issues. OneStream AI is embedded in your workflows and governed by your rules.

  • Infinitely extensible

    Built to grow as your business evolves.

    Add natively integrated capabilities as your needs evolve, from sales planning to workforce analytics, without IT bottlenecks or the cost of another platform.

  • FedRAMP Rev. 5
  • ISO 27001:2022
  • SOC 1
  • SOC 2
  • GDPR

OneStream (EPM software) puts a group's close, consolidation, plan and board report on 1 data model.

OneStream (EPM software) holds the close, the consolidation, the plan and the board report of a multi-entity group on 1 data model. A group buys it when its legacy consolidation reaches the end of its life. Constancia is an EPM consultancy that has implemented it 58 times over 35 years.

The product is 1 platform for the whole of a group's finance work. A close that used to run across 3 systems runs in 1 after the move, and the plan, the consolidation and the board report read the same numbers.

The platform sits above the ERPs and reads their balances, so SAP, Oracle or NetSuite keep running the ledger underneath. The legacy consolidation, HFM, BPC or IBM Controller, leaves the estate along with most of the workbooks that grew around it.

Where a group of 12 entities runs its eliminations in a workbook, the platform holds those eliminations exactly as the workbook defines them. Constancia surveys the model before the price is set, and the price is then fixed.

9 screens from inside OneStream.

Select a screen to see it at full size.

  • Close task manager
  • Reporting
  • Planning
  • Analytics
  • Data integration
  • Workflow
  • Compliance
  • Currency translation
  • ESG reporting

6 pieces of finance work sit on the 1 OneStream model, so a variance is a subtraction.

Where planning and consolidation share their dimensions, a variance is the plan taken from the actual. Where they sit in 2 systems, somebody owns a mapping between them and maintains it every month.

  1. 01

    Consolidation

    The close and the consolidation run on 1 model, and this module usually justifies the purchase when a legacy tool fails at month end.

  2. 02

    Financial planning

    The plan sits on the same entities and accounts as the actuals, so a variance report needs no mapping between 2 systems.

  3. 03

    Reporting

    A report drills from a group figure back to the source balance it came from, across financial and operational data.

  4. 04

    Analysis

    Financial analytics and embedded AI read the same model as the close rather than an export, so an analysis and the group result never disagree.

  5. 05

    Account reconciliation

    Each reconciliation is held against the balance it reconciles, rather than in a workbook somebody keeps in step by hand.

  6. 06

    Data in

    OneStream connects directly to Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, IBM, Infor, Workday, Databricks and Snowflake, so the survey tests what each source will release.

  • SAP
  • Oracle Fusion
  • NetSuite
  • Microsoft Dynamics
  • Workday
  • Sage
  • Xero
  • Salesforce
  • Snowflake
  • Databricks
  • Microsoft Dynamics
  • Workday
  • Sage
  • Xero
  • Salesforce
  • Snowflake
  • Databricks
  • SAP
  • Oracle Fusion
  • NetSuite
  • Xero
  • Salesforce
  • Snowflake
  • Databricks
  • SAP
  • Oracle Fusion
  • NetSuite
  • Microsoft Dynamics
  • Workday
  • Sage

Three things get faster when a group closes, plans and reports on 1 model.

Each one follows from the same thing: 1 data model under the close, the plan and the board report.

  • The close

    54% less time to close the books

    Each ledger loads once and the consolidation runs ownership, translation and elimination on what arrived, so the days spent agreeing 2 versions of a balance come out of the calendar.

  • Data management

    72% less time on data management

    One model replaces the extracts a finance team used to keep in step by hand, so nobody spends the first week of the month reconciling copies of the same ledger.

  • Reporting

    75% faster reporting cycles

    The board report reads the consolidation rather than a copy of it, so a late adjustment reaches the pack without anyone rebuilding it.

Constancia has worked on OneStream for 35 years and still begins every engagement by reading the client's data model.

Constancia is an official OneStream partner, and the consultants who build your model hold OneStream certifications. The firm's 58 implementations span 35 years, from the platform's early releases to the current one.

Across those 58 groups the survey found the same 3 faults before the platform ran. 1 measure had 2 definitions, every acquisition had kept its own ledger and the close finished in 1 person's workbook.

A certificate and a partner badge tell a buyer that a firm knows the screens. The 3 questions that separate firms in a sales process concern the data model, and we hand them to every prospect on the first call.

5 conditions in a group's structure decide whether OneStream fits it.

Constancia implements the platform and still declines it where the structure has no use for it.

The structure fits

OneStream fits a group with 5 features

  • Several entities consolidate, and the intercompany eliminations currently happen in a workbook.
  • The estate runs more than 1 ERP, or 1 ERP that an acquisition is about to make 2.
  • A legacy consolidation, HFM, BPC or IBM Controller, is on a sunset path.
  • A dated event drives the work: an IPO, SOX readiness, an integration clock or a new CFO's first mandate.
  • The group reports in several currencies and reconciles each one back to local books.
The structure does not fit

OneStream gives no return to a group with 5 other features

  • A single entity closes 1 ledger with no eliminations, and the platform would run with little to do.
  • The consolidation is settled and the plan is the problem, which points at Abacum (FP&A software).
  • No date sits in the diary, so the work is rarely urgent enough to justify the interruption.
  • The buyer expects the platform to sort out the data model, and the platform reproduces the model it is given.
  • Nobody in finance will own the system after go-live, and a system nobody defends gives way to a spreadsheet.

Where the structure does not fit, we say so before a proposal exists.

OneStream and Abacum (FP&A software) answer 2 different problems, and the consolidation decides which one a group needs.

Constancia implements both platforms, so each row below compares them by structure.

OneStream (EPM software) and Abacum (FP&A software) compared by structure, on 6 rows.
OneStreamAbacum
Who it suitsA multi-entity group closing across several ledgers, usually with a legacy consolidation to replace.A finance team whose planning has outgrown the workbook and whose consolidation is already settled.
What it is forThe close, the consolidation, the plan and the report, on 1 model.Budgets, forecasts, headcount and scenarios, which is FP&A.
What it replacesHFM, BPC or IBM Controller and the workbooks that grew around them.The budget workbook, the version sent round by email and the model 1 person can open.
Time to go liveMonths, because the new consolidation runs beside the old one until the difference is 0.Weeks, once the planning drivers have owners outside finance.
Where it stopsA single entity with a straightforward close gets no return from it.Abacum is built for the plan, so a group with an elimination problem belongs in the other column.
What Constancia brings58 implementations over 35 years, and consultants who hold OneStream certifications.Certified Abacum consultants based in the UK.

Finance teams ask 6 questions about OneStream before they ask anyone for a price.

What is OneStream used for?

A multi-entity group uses OneStream for the financial close, the consolidation, planning, reporting and analysis. 1 data model holds the ledger balances, the eliminations, the translated figures and the plan, so the consolidation and the forecast read the same numbers.

Is OneStream an ERP or EPM?

OneStream is EPM software. An ERP such as SAP or NetSuite records the transactions in each entity's ledger. OneStream takes the balances out of 1 or several ERPs and turns them into a group result, a plan and a set of reports. The ERP keeps running underneath it.

Is OneStream a consolidation tool?

OneStream consolidates, and a group usually buys it for that reason, because the legacy tool or the workbook is the thing failing at month end. Planning, reporting and analysis then sit on the same model as the consolidation rather than on a copy of it.

Is OneStream similar to SAP?

SAP most often runs the ledger underneath, and SAP also sells planning and consolidation products of its own. OneStream sits above whatever ledgers a group runs, including several at once, so a group with a mixed ERP estate often ends up on it.

Who is OneStream owned by?

OneStream is a public company that listed on Nasdaq in July 2024 under the ticker OS. KKR backed the company privately before the listing and remained its largest shareholder at that point.

Is OneStream software difficult to learn?

A finance analyst who knows the group's chart of accounts learns the OneStream screens in ordinary use. The difficulty sits in the data model beneath them, because the platform reproduces the structure it is given. A team handed a tangled model calls its implementer every month end.

Constancia's OneStream work covers 6 services, and each one starts once the model underneath can carry it.

The platform is a capability, and the data model is the job.EPM consulting for a multi-entity groupAI readiness assessmentSee both partners

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