Expert insight
EPM Deployment in 8 Weeks: Consolidation and FP&A Feedback with OneStream and KPC
How KPC put a consolidation and FP&A solution into production with OneStream in just two months.
Your consolidation and FP&A finally brought together in 12 weeks. This is not a promise. This is our experience.
Every week, CFOs tell us the same thing: "We know we need to modernize our tool, but we don't have 18 months ahead of us.".
We understand this objection. And we decided to answer it concretely — with numbers and real feedback.
Why the EPM deployment timeline is the real question
When a Mid-Market finance department seeks to modernize its consolidation or FP&A, it doesn't fundamentally have a solution problem. It has a problem of time, available resources, and confidence in the ability to deliver. Older generation EPM projects have built a reputation that is hard to erase: 12, 18, or even 24 months of deployment, mobilized IT teams, go-lives that arrive too late, and painful adoption.
It is precisely to break this paradigm that we have structured, with our partner OneStream, a pre-configured approach deployable in 8 to 12 weeks, which allows statutory consolidation and FP&A to be unified in a single EPM platform, with a predictable cost from the start.
The 4 pain points of Finance teams in consolidation and FP&A
Before talking about technology, let's start with the concrete pain points we observe with our clients:
Financial consolidation and management reporting do not speak to each other. Two tools, two frameworks, hours wasted each month reconciling numbers that should be the same.
The consolidated close takes too long. Account production timelines eat into analysis and steering time.
Finance depends on IT for the slightest change. Modifying a report, adding an account, adapting a workflow: it's a ticket, a meeting, a delay.
Budgeting and forecasting remain largely in Excel — fragile, non-auditable, and difficult to update during the fiscal year.
These four pain points are not anecdotes: they are the four main reasons why our clients decided to take the leap.
5 misconceptions about EPM projects — and what reality says
« It is reserved for large companies » → CPM Express specifically targets mid-market groups.
The offering is sized for their scale and budget — not that of a CAC 40.« An EPM project is long and tedious » → Deployment in 8 to 12 weeks thanks to a pre-configuration for IFRS / French standards.
« It is complicated and expensive to maintain » → Configuration without technical development. The Finance team adds accounts, reports, and controls without depending on IT. Predictable cost from the start.
« They are going to take Excel away from me » → All OneStream reports can be dynamically consumed in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. Excel remains available, enriched.
« It's an IT project » → It's a Finance project. Finance teams drive the configuration and administration from end to end.
What the project of the large management consulting firm taught us
This large management consulting firm is one of the first clients for whom we deployed this approach. The result: statutory consolidation and management reporting in less than 12 weeks, across a multi-entity scope.
Three factors were decisive:
The first is preparation beforehand: the pre-engagement phase — mock-ups, calculation rules, accounting schemes — is the least visible but most structuring step. The more carefully it is prepared, the faster the rest goes.
The second factor is the availability of the client-side Finance teams: Finance teams drive key decision-making, notably the definition of workflows or validation of historical data migration — this is not a project you fully delegate to the integrator.
The third is methodological discipline: staying within the standard as long as possible, and customizing progressively.
An important detail on timelines: OneStream officially announces 6 to 8 weeks for CPM Express.
At KPC, we communicate on 8 to 12 weeks — a timeline that includes the pre-engagement phase and historical data migration. It is a more conservative promise, but it is the one we are able to keep.
How deploying a unified EPM platform works
What changes concretely is that all data — actuals, budget, forecast, statutory consolidation, management reporting — coexist in the same application. No synchronization between modules, no risk of discrepancies between tools, no interface to maintain.
The analogy we often use: OneStream is the smartphone. The pre-configured offering is the installed app that makes you operational from day one. And the marketplace (Solution Exchange) is the App Store — you add what you need as your organization evolves: payroll, CAPEX, cash flow, ESG, project planning, Pillar 2.
Finance teams regain real autonomy: creating their own reports, budget simulations with pre-configured methods, auditing every number down to the source data in one click — without involving IT.
The project phases
Pre-engagement: Mock-ups, calculation rules, accounting schemes, workflow definition. Client availability is essential — this is the #1 key success factor. (Duration: variable)
Kick-off & Design: Detailed design, contributor organization, validation of target processes and design validation. (Duration: 2-3 weeks)
Configuration: Setup and unit testing. Feature activation — no heavy technical development. (Duration: 6 weeks)
Configuration: Integration tests, user and Finance administrator training. (Duration: 2 weeks)
Go-live & Warranty: Production release and post go-live KPC support. (Duration: 1-2 months)
How an EPM platform evolves after deployment
The CPM Express approach is not an end in itself. It is an entry point into an EPM platform designed to evolve with your organization over 10 to 15 years. Our clients start with financial consolidation and management reporting, then progressively expand their scope: payroll planning, cash flow management, CAPEX, and ESG/CSRD reporting.
What remains unchanged: the same application, the same data model, the same user logic. We never start back from scratch.
To learn more about our EPM expertise, discover our Performance Management offering
Are you still managing your consolidation and FP&A in separate tools? Does your closing process still take too long? Contact us to evaluate if this approach is suitable for your organization.
About KPC
KPC is a consulting and integration firm specializing in Data and EPM (Enterprise Performance Management).
With €70M in revenue, 500+ consultants and experts across 12 offices, 8 entities in France (Aix-en-Provence, Bordeaux, Lyon, Montpellier, Nantes, Paris, Sophia Antipolis, Toulouse) and 3 international locations including 2 Offshore BUs (Philippines and Madagascar), KPC supports finance departments in modernizing their performance management, financial consolidation, and reporting processes.
As a certified OneStream integration partner, KPC has over 100 EPM clients in production, including CMA CGM, Accor, and the large management consulting firm.
Our approach combines Finance business expertise, technical mastery of EPM solutions, and hands-on field experience for pragmatic, results-oriented projects.
About OneStream
OneStream is the unified cloud platform for Corporate Performance Management, trusted by over 1,700 clients worldwide.
Designed to unify financial and operational data within a single application, OneStream covers closing and consolidation, FP&A, integrated planning, and ESG reporting. The platform natively integrates artificial intelligence to accelerate forecasting and automate low-value tasks.
OneStream is recognized as a Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice 2024, BARC Financial Performance Management Market Leader, and The Hackett Group Digital World Class Integrated EPM 2024.
