Oracle Financials play a big role in the information infrastructures of many companies, and a solid understanding of that environment can pay very large dividends in consulting work. Oracle Certified Professional Financial Applications Consultant Exam Guide readies you for the four exams (two core and two elective) that make up the Oracle Certified Professional (OCP) Financial Applications Consultant track. The book tackles the exams one at a time, explaining what you need to know--conceptually, as well as in terms of software details--about the Oracle Financials environment. The exercises help drive information into your long-term memory, and each chapter is peppered with review questions that help prepare you for what's on the exams.

This is more than a test-prep book, however, and it's likely that you'll be happy with it even if you have no plans to pursue a formal Oracle certification. The large and complicated concepts that underlie Oracle Financials are explained, a difficult job that the book does well. It's also careful to maintain a focus on business objectives, instead of on characteristics of the software itself. One section explains the process of creating a blanket purchase order, properly accounting for the purchases that are made against it, and then releasing individual purchase authorizations under the order's terms. The index is extensive and detailed, so finding the documentation that you need is rather easy. --David Wall

Topics covered: The Oracle Financials suite of applications, with a bit of a bias toward the four Oracle Certified Professional (OCP) Financial Applications Consultant tests. The details of the material that's on the Financial Management, Applied Technology, Procurement, and Order Fulfillment exams all appear here, which means that you can use this as a general-purpose Oracle Financials reference, and not only as a study helper.