Headquartered in Pennsauken, NJ, J&J Snack Foods provides branded snack foods to food service and retail supermarket outlets cross the United States. As a leader and innovator in the snack food industry, J&J products include fan favorites like LUIGI’S Real Italian Ice, The Funnel Cake Factory Funnel Cakes, Hola Churros, and the iconic SUPERPRETZEL and ICEE, as well as a host of other products spanning the baked goods, frozen beverage, and frozen novelties categories.
Business Challenges
Significant growth and change at J&J Snack Foods highlighted the need for a more cohesive and integrated platform to support the snack food innovator’s Planning, Financial Close, and Reporting functions. The organization was relying heavily on manually maintained spreadsheets to manage planning templates, global assumptions, hierarchies, and commentary, creating inefficiencies and making the close process cumbersome. Key financial processes, including the annual budget, monthly close and consolidation, account reconciliation, and transaction matching, were highly manual and labor-intensive and lacked the transparency needed by Finance and Accounting leadership. To improve operational efficiency, J&J wanted to streamline budgeting activities and reduce the monthly close cycle by two to three days. Additionally, there was a clear need for stronger governance through standardizing processes. The organization needed to leverage modern, scalable best practices to support continued growth and expansion.
Approach
To address the growing complexity of its financial operations, J&J Snack Foods partnered with Peloton Consulting Group to implement a more integrated, phased solution using Oracle Cloud EPM. The initiative focused on bringing together people, processes, and technology by streamlining key finance functions, including planning, financial close, and account reconciliation. A structured process for Gross Margin Planning was designed and implemented at a more detailed level to better support consolidated Profit and Loss planning across the organization. For financial close, Oracle’s Financial Consolidation and Close module was deployed to organize and automate the consolidation of actuals and orchestrate a more efficient month-end process. Additionally, Account Reconciliation and Transaction Matching were introduced to improve accuracy and efficiency in monthly reconciliations, including key areas such as general ledger to cash and intercompany transactions. Looking ahead, J&J Snack Foods plans to expand the solution to include Profitability and Cost Management and Narrative Reporting as part of its near-future road map.
Business Impact
The implementation of Oracle Cloud EPM delivered significant business impact for J&J Snack Foods by transforming its financial planning and analysis capabilities. The annual budget process was integrated into a centralized system, enabling the FP&A team to review, evaluate, and monitor budget submissions more efficiently and track progress throughout the entire budget cycle. Monthly close, forecasting, and annual budgeting processes were streamlined and automated, resulting in stronger controls, improved visibility, and greater consistency and repeatability. Enhanced actuals reporting and data availability now empower finance leadership with real-time analysis capabilities, providing deeper insights and enabling more agile decision-making throughout the month. Additionally, the solution was designed with scalability in mind, ensuring it can accommodate future acquisitions and support the company’s anticipated business growth.
Summary
J&J Snack Foods partnered with Peloton Consulting Group to implement Oracle Cloud EPM and modernize its financial planning and analysis capabilities. The phased rollout introduced detailed Gross Margin Planning, streamlined financial close with automated consolidation, and improved account reconciliation and transaction matching. These efforts enhanced process efficiency, increased visibility for leadership with real-time reporting, and centralized the annual budget process. The scalable solution supports future growth and acquisitions, with upcoming phases focused on profitability, cost management, and narrative reporting.
