Oracle links retail, accounting packages

Oracle has released patches that link its business accounting software with recently acquired retailing applications, as it tries to boost interoperability between products gained this year through numerous buyouts.

The company said Tuesday that the free set of patches allow businesses to more easily shuttle data between Oracle Financials and the Retail Merchandising System from Retek, a software maker it acquired in March. Additional patches for pulling data from the retail programs into the financial ones are expected by year's end, an Oracle representative said.

By linking the systems, customers can better coordinate business activities, Oracle said. For instance, the patched systems can automatically match invoices to purchase orders and receipts, and trigger payments through an accounts payable program. Another new capability updates financial information in Oracle General Ledger based on inventory data stored in merchandising systems.

In addition, the patched programs can jointly audit and post daily sales information to the general ledger application and deliver business reports that combine data from both systems.

Oracle said it enabled these features just six months after the Retek acquisition, using its own set of interoperability tools called Fusion Middleware. Customers can expect similarly rapid progress on other interoperability efforts, the Redwood City, Calif.-based company said.

"We believe that this rapid development process will serve as a model for future application integrations," Jeff Wexler, Oracle's senior director of retail, consumer products and wholesale distribution strategy, said in a statement.

The company has a lot of integration work to do after acquiring nearly a dozen companies this year. In addition to Retek, Oracle bought PeopleSoft and has agreed to purchase Siebel Systems--both multibillion-dollar deals. Smaller acquisitions included ProfitLogic, i-Flex and G-Log.