By Swathi Ambati, HEXstream data solutions engineer

Utilities operate in a highly regulated environment that demands transparency, financial
accuracy, and strong internal controls. As organizations modernize their operations on Oracle Fusion, Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence (FDI) has become an essential platform for delivering deeper insights, supporting audit readiness, and enabling data-driven governance.

Many organizations transitioning from legacy ERP systems finds that while Oracle Fusion provides robust functionality, adapting to new reporting structures, terminology and subject-area designs can take time. Although FDI offers several out-of-the-box dashboards, business users often need adjustments or enhanced analytical capabilities tailored to their specific auditing and operational requirements.

This is where custom enhancements and subject-area extensions become especially valuable.

This article highlights practical use cases showing how utilities can use FDI for audit and
compliance. It also points out situations where adding extra attributes such as banking details, policy-related fields, exception indicators, and procurement data can help create more complete and accurate analysis.

Enhancing financial transparency with extended banking and policy-related information

Auditing within utility organizations often requires detailed visibility into financial operations. To support this, additional attributes such as banking information, policy-driven markers, or organization-specific financial indicators may need to be incorporated into relevant FDI subject areas.

These enhancements help auditors validate:

• Proper mapping of bank accounts to business units
• Financial processes aligned with internal policies
• Compliance with organizational or regulatory guidelines

By surfacing these enriched attributes within FDI, internal and external auditors can trace
financial activity more efficiently and verify process adherence without navigating multiple transactional screens in Oracle Fusion.

Extending subject areas to capture missing or cross-system data

Out-of-the-box FDI subject areas may not include every attribute needed for deep audit
analysis. To bridge this gap, organizations can extend subject areas.

When data originates from external systems, data augmentation can be used to bring that
information into FDI, enabling unified and consistent reporting. These extensions enable organizations to:

• Analyze data in one place rather than comparing multiple application views
• Minimize manual reconciliation efforts
• Make informed decisions using consolidated, audit-ready datasets

Auditors and compliance teams can analyze data across:

• Time periods
• Supplier and vendor attributes
• Business units
• Invoice, receipt and transaction details
• Account and cost-center structures

This provides a transparent and comprehensive view of financial and operational activities,
supporting exception monitoring, policy validation, and trend analysis.

Strengthening procurement and receiving compliance audits

Procurement processes in utilities involve several touchpoint purchase orders, receipts,
invoices and approval workflows. By extending FDI subject areas with additional procurement- and receiving-related attributes, organizations can better monitor and audit:

• Order creation and approval processes
• Receipt validations and exception thresholds
• The PO → receipt → invoice lifecycle
• Supplier performance and adherence to expectations

These enhanced datasets give auditors end-to-end visibility into procurement activities, helping them identify control gaps, detect irregularities, and spot deviations that may indicate inefficiencies or compliance risks.

Why these enhancements matter for utilities

Utility organizations face unique audit and operational challenges, including:

• High transaction volumes
• Strict compliance and regulatory standards
• Multi-layered process flows
• Financial exposure across operational, procurement and purchasing channels

By extending FDI subject areas and integrating custom attributes, utilities can:

• Strengthens internal controls
• Reduce audit cycle time
• Improve the accuracy of compliance and financial reporting
• Gain better visibility into spending and operational behaviors
• Detect anomalies earlier and with greater confidence

FDI effectively becomes a centralized audit and analysis platform for financial teams, compliance teams, and operational leaders.

Conclusion

Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence helps utilities improve audit readiness, financial transparency, and overall compliance. By adding extra banking details, policy-related fields, procurement information, exception indicators, and other important data into extended subject areas, utilities can get clearer insights and make better decisions.

As the utilities industry continues to grow and change, FDI will remain a key tool for
maintaining financial accuracy, simplifying audits, and supporting responsible, data-driven operations across the organization.

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