Unfortunately, some enterprise performance management (EPM) solutions that claim to be "platforms" deliver nothing more than a toolkit where most financial calculations, rules, or accounting standards must be implemented using custom code. These solutions require computer programming skills in order to customize their applications and perform the financial close process - frustrating the efforts of professionals hired to manage financial consolidation, account reconciliation, and tax reporting. Programming, or "coding," is typically not in a finance manager's wheelhouse. Asking them to learn how to write code-or hiring additional resources in the finance department with coding expertise-are options that incur valuable time and add unneeded costs to the goal of achieving an automated, continuous, and connected close.