Martin WatsonMartin Watson

23rd October 2002

User Group

• Key reporting issues• Analyst Solution

- “Analyst for Sage”- “Budgeting for Sage”- “Consolidation for Sage”

• Demonstration

Home

AgendaAgenda

A Selection of UsersA Selection of Users

>>back

Reporting - Have we lost the plot?Reporting - Have we lost the plot?

“the industry has applied querying tools to mainframes, report generators to departmental processing in the finance department, and functionally rich spreadsheets… As a result, it is no wonder that reporting in many organisations is fractured, slow and unreliable. Somewhere in this transition from primitive end user reporting through to sophisticated ‘slicing and dicing’ we have lost the plot! For example, we can produce any number of complicated colour graphics from our spreadsheet with the click of a couple of buttons but we cannot produce that vital profit and loss account for a week without an army of spreadsheet jockeys.”

Gary Simon

Deloitte & Touche

Financial Systems News

What the market wantsWhat the market wants

• Prompt Automated Reporting• Integrated Reporting - Actual, Budget etc• Precise Variance Analysis• Flexible Formatting• Automated Maintenance• Transaction Detail• Enterprise-wide distribution, security etc• Reporting from multiple systems and companies• Intuitive reporting• Corporate information - financial & non-financial

“…. One Solution”

Management Reporting – The IssuesManagement Reporting – The Issues

What the market getsWhat the market gets

• Manual cycle, re-keying, re-formatting etc• Late reporting• Non-integrated reporting - actual, budget etc• Dual maintenance• Balance only reporting• Poorly formatted standard report sets• Reliance on IT/key individuals – proprietary systems• Difficulty handling changes: “… last month’s cost centre

groupings have changed and so must all our reports”• A spreadsheet

Management Reporting – The IssuesManagement Reporting – The Issues

Microsoft Excel is the ‘best’ and most widely used reporting and budgeting solution…

“98% of all companies use MS Excel for reporting and budgeting”

Deloitte & Touche

• Superb familiar reporting interface

• Ownership and control

• Integrating environment

• Portable environment

• Graphics and powerful formatting

Spreadsheet CultureSpreadsheet Culture

Positives:Positives:

• Manual re-keying• Re-formatting• Linked spreadsheets, macros & maintenance• Manipulating large directories• Excel used as a database• Performance and instability• Reliance on key individuals• Meeting expectations

Spreadsheet CultureSpreadsheet Culture

Negatives:Negatives:

The Analyst Solutions uniquely address the key reporting, budgeting and consolidation requirements of most companies.

Analyst transforms the process into a “true production environment that makes meaningful information available to the whole enterprise”.

Analyst Solution – Day Zero ReportingAnalyst Solution – Day Zero Reporting

Analyst ComponentsAnalyst Components

Viewer Manager

Author UDA

ReportingReportingDatabaseDatabase

AuthorAuthor

ViewerViewerSage GLSage GL

Other Other SystemsSystems

UDA

Analyst Reporting OverviewAnalyst Reporting Overview

Roll ups

Delivery Mechanisms…Delivery Mechanisms…

Workbook GeneratorWorkbook Generator

Dept 4• Worksheet• Workbook

Dept 3• Worksheet• Workbook

Dept 2• Worksheet• Workbook

Dept 1• Worksheet• Workbook

Workbook Generator:Workbook Generator:

• Control Sheet

• Workbook Template

AnalystAnalyst

DatabaseDatabase

Analyst Analyst for Sagefor Sage

“We were looking for a simple way to extract transaction data from our core financial system into Excel that all users could easily access for reporting purposes. Analyst for Sage does this. Our reporting database is fully refreshed with data from the general ledger automatically on a daily basis and we have five finance users producing and running reports….

The initial implementation focused on producing a database of actuals and budgets from the general ledger and took three days. An additional two days enabled us to increase the database to include actual data from the project ledger and fixed assets ledger plus forecast data on the general ledger….

One day of training was sufficient to produce simple reports and one super user went on to develop more complex reports without further training.”

Karen Dyson, Head of Finance, Hobsons plc, “Sage Reseller News”

Analyst for SageAnalyst for Sage

DemonstrationDemonstration

• Viewer• Author• Manager – roll ups• Workbook Generator• Budgeting for Sage

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IterateIterate

Budgeting/Forecasting ProcessBudgeting/Forecasting Process

BuildBuild

SystemSystem

InitiateInitiate

BudgetBudget

DistributeDistribute

BudgetBudget

Enter/modelEnter/model

BudgetBudget

SubmitSubmit

ReturnsReturns

ReportReport&&

AnalyseAnalyse

ReviseRevise

SystemSystem

Analyst Budgeting SolutionAnalyst Budgeting Solution

DistributedBudgetWorkbooks

GLGLAnalyst Analyst

DatabaseDatabaseWrite Back

Author builds Budget Template

WorkbookWorkbook

GeneratorGenerator

DatamartGenerator Data

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