Custom Financial Reporting Shouldn’t Be a Complex IT Project. Are You Doing It Right?

In 2025, finance teams move faster than ever. But their reporting solutions? Not so much.

FP&A analysts and operational finance teams are constantly responding to changing business conditions, evolving leadership asks, and fast-moving planning cycles. But when your tools are too rigid to keep up, every small report request turns into a mini-IT project.

That’s why custom reporting – once a luxury – has become a baseline expectation from financial reporting solutions. The challenge is no longer “can we build it?” but “how quickly can we get the data we need without burning cycles?”

Let’s break down the outdated bottlenecks, and why smarter reporting solutions like GLConnect are helping modern finance teams break free.

The FSG and OTBI Opportunity

If you’re still relying on Financial Statement Generator (FSG) or Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence (OTBI), you’re not alone. These tools have long been the go-to for Oracle EBS and Fusion Cloud users. And rightfully so – they are built specifically for Oracle users.

But they weren’t designed for how FP&A and operational finance teams work today.

• FSG is static. It’s great for templated financial statements. But not for dynamic, multi-dimensional reporting.
• OTBI is complex. Creating anything beyond a standard report usually requires help from IT or Oracle experts.
• Neither is truly flexible. You can’t pivot mid-cycle or adjust your filters on the fly.

But the modern business environment demands real-time data exploration.

The opportunity here? Adopting solutions that meet modern finance where it is – fast, iterative, Excel-native, and analyst-friendly.

That’s where GLConnect steps in and creates reporting speed and user empowerment.

The Pain of Chasing IT for Every Small Change

You need to slice cost center expenses differently.

You want to exclude outliers from a budget vs. actual report.

You’re asked to add a new KPI column.

In most cases, any small request like this means raising an IT ticket.

You’ve seen this movie too many times!

1. You log a request.
2. You wait.
3. You follow up.
4. You receive a version that’s… not quite right.
5. Repeat steps 1 – 4.

This loop is frustrating, sure. But worse, it’s a bottleneck to agility. When analysts can’t independently tweak filters, drill down, or add custom logic, reporting becomes reactive instead of strategic.

The solution isn’t more IT support. It’s less dependence on IT altogether.

The Rise of Operational Finance – and Its New Reporting Needs

Finance is no longer siloed in month-end reports and annual planning decks. Operational finance teams are embedded in business units, acting as partners to sales, HR, operations, and more.

That shift has exploded the need for agile, custom reporting.

• A supply chain finance analyst may need to slice POs by vendor and category.
• A revenue analyst might want to model pricing changes by region.
• A marketing finance partner could need to track campaign ROI with real-time cost data.

These aren’t one-size-fits-all reports. They’re on-the-fly analyses that change daily. And they need a reporting tool that adapts just as fast.

Enter GLConnect – also built for Oracle users… But those who live and work in 2025

How GLConnect Empowers Analysts to Self-Serve in Excel

GLConnect solves for these pain points. It’s a financial reporting tool that finally makes custom reporting feel simpler.

Here’s how GLConnect flips the script:

• Works inside Excel: No new interface to learn. Just the familiar environment analysts already use.
• Connects directly to Oracle ERP (EBS & Cloud): Live data, real-time updates, zero exports.
• Drag-and-drop report building: Create and modify reports without touching SQL or writing code.
• Self-service drilldowns: Need to see subledger details? Click and go.
• Flexible filtering and hierarchies: Tailor your views by cost center, business line, or time period in seconds.

GLConnect is built for the way FP&A analysts and operational finance teams actually work in 2025. Fast. Curious. Iterative.

What Modern Custom Reporting and Empowered Reporting Teams Look Like with GLConnect

Let’s say your business leader asks: “Can you show me Opex trends by department, excluding shared services, compared to budget, and broken out by month?”

If you’re using FSG or OTBI, that’s a few days of back and forth with IT.

With GLConnect, you deliver the answers in minutes:

• You open the prebuilt Opex report in Excel.
• You apply a real-time filter to exclude shared services.
• You toggle the time dimension to monthly.
• You click to drill into department-level spend.
• You hit refresh, and boom! You’re done.

That’s the power of truly modern custom reporting and user empowerment. It’s fast, flexible, and completely in the analyst’s control.

Stop Waiting. Start Building. With GLConnect

Reporting shouldn’t be an obstacle course. It should be a launchpad.

If your team is spending more time requesting reports than analyzing them, it’s time for a change.

With GLConnect, you can build the custom reports you need – without a single line of code, and without waiting for IT.

See how GLConnect can level up custom reporting workflows. Start your free trial today.