Accounting Intelligence and Business Intelligence - the perfect marriage for success Noah Kluge

Reasonable Objectives for Business Intelligence Accelerated month end close Elimination of Islands of information Operational & Financial reporting from the same system Single reconciled view with unrestricted analysis Guaranteed reporting integrity

Finance should use BI If Finance do not have BI capabilities, then they will be locked in a manual process They will continually rebuild the Audit trail that the ERP has used to post the general ledger to create the reports they need Their version of the truth will represent island of information that all operational reporting will struggle to agree back to, but it is the one that everyone will believe

Why might Finance be resistant ? Finance have reporting obligations driven by legal & professional requirements as well as management They require core accounting capabilities to deliver on their obligations Finance is driven by the summarised view of the business (general ledger), which is often ignored by the wider BI initiatives.

BI Strategy needs Finance on board BI strategy often focuses on Operations which is driven by the subsets of the business information (sub ledgers) Finance is accepted as custodians of authoritative information within most companies It is therefore essential to ensure the BI initiative is completely consistent with the financial view Discrepancies will create doubt, affect confidence and impact adoption of the BI

ERP Operations vs Finance perspective Sales Ledger Purchase Ledger Item Ledger Project ledger General Ledger

Example of a Finance view vs an Operational view of Revenue

Typical Financial Statement

Operational View -Sales by Product

For a Successful BI 1An integrated business wide view of information 2Accounting Intelligence 3Currency Conversion & Consolidation capability Incorporate financial functionality

1. Business wide view of information The database that supports the BI must fully integrate the sub-ledgers with the GL The Finance view and the Operations view become one and the same thing Reconciliation & Validation will become a property of the system rather than a recurring task The same system that produces Financial reports can effortlessly spool out operational reports

ERP General Ledger Integrated BI data model Sales Ledger Purchase Ledger Item Ledger Project ledger

Business wide view – Finance & Operations Customers General Ledger Journal Vendor Projects Inventory

Back-end vs. Front-end ERP MS Dynamics FORMAT DATA Back-End

An unrestricted view: Ready for Analysis Chart of Accounts Fixed Asset Detail Multi-company Customer Detail Inventory Detail Vendor Detail Project Detail Time & Period Analysis Bank Detail The GL: Limited Analytical Detail AR & AP Ageing Budgets & Forecasts Dimension Hierarchies Sub-ledger Line Description QUANTITYQUANTITY Summary is replaced with detail… OverheadsSales/Purchase Orders Entire HistoryPurchasing prepares

Unrestricted and Immediate Customers General Ledger Journal Vendor Projects Inventory

Back-end vs. Front-end Front -End ERP MS Dynamics FORMAT DATA DISTRIBUTE ANALYSE Power Users Back-End Management

2. Accounting Intelligence Double Entry – Debits and Credits Chart of Accounts Financial Calendar / Periodicity Dimension and Hierarchies

Demonstration

3. Currency Conversion, Consolidation & Closing Availability of information −Summary vs Detail −Daily vs Monthly Translation capabilities −Common currencies −Conversion routines – Multiple rates (Spot, Historic, Average etc.) −Treatment of x-rate gains / losses Consolidation structures −Common chart of accounts −Remapping −Consolidation hierarchies

Closing Currency & Consolidation

BI Strategy without Finance on board Finance will contain their view of the ERP in difficult to access islands of information Discrepancies will create doubt, affect confidence and impact adoption of the BI Reconciliation and validation issues will continually arise Your BI will be compromised

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE AS A MANAGED SERVICE For a Successful BI Implementation:

BI as a Managed Service At the start We build the application – fully validated and reconciled. Key report templates delivered at implementation On-going operation Automated data integration delivers core system within hours each night. Most aspects of repository / hyper-cube self-maintaining. Guaranteed “trusted” status Application monitored on a daily basis to ensure proper execution Subject matter expertise Accounting and analysis pros available on-demand for report development and application extensions

Typical Delivery Plan

Conclusion Embrace Financial Functionality and your BI has the potential to be very successful Data Model to integrate the data Accounting Intelligence to interpret the data Advanced manipulation capability to facilitate currency conversion, consolidation and closing A managed service methodology to handle the implementation and ongoing support

Accounting Intelligence and Business Intelligence - the perfect marriage for success Thank you for your time. Phone: AXUG Summit Booth 1316