If your month-end financial reports (typically your income statement, balance sheet and cashflow) from your accounting or ERP system doesn’t give you the financial information you need to support your decisions making processes, then I would urge you to investigate a BI reporting solution.

A typical scenario in small and mid-market businesses is when ERP or Accounting system’s financial reports are simply inadequate for the business decision makers. These decision makers’ requests for financial information beyond the standard financial reports from the ERP system lead to the ‘Export to Excel’ function becoming the default  financial reporting solution, which leads to wasted time, outdated information, unnecessary exposure to human error and even the dark place some call ‘spreadsheet hell’.

This year Gartner recommended that we make peace with Excel as a BI tool. The Alchemex founders were not required to do so because they had predicted years ago that Excel and BI were going to come closer together, not move apart as many commentators thought. This lead to their ‘entrepreneurial innovation’ for automated financial reporting directly from the data source of the ERP or accounting system into Microsoft Excel allowing financial managers and directors to have the best of both the familiar Excel environment and data already captured.

As the FD of Alchemex, I have the ‘luxury’ of being able to design and create the Income Statement that we need once and,  until I need to get more or different information from my Income Statement, I run it literally by clicking a run button at my discretion. I also have instant drill-down to the general ledger and various other clever Excel-based functionality that makes it easier for me to understand and interpret our revenue and expense related accounting data. But perhaps this functionality is more often associated with BI? Along with automated Trend Analysis, What-if Analysis, Executive Dashboards and Sales Analysis…all of which I have at the click of a button too.

Although month-end financial reporting is nothing new, what is new is the idea that the underlying data exists in the ERP or accounting system for automated financial reporting that gives you far more than your basic financial information quickly and easily. For example, it would be hard to claim that knowing your July Net Profit and YTD number on the 3rd of August is BI, but knowing what revenue lines contribute the most to your Net Profit, I would argue, is both expected from month-end financial reports and is also BI. Most small and mid-market ERP system’s standard financial reports would not be able to provide this information without someone, hopefully skilled, accurate and with time on his/her hands available  to ‘export to Excel’.

My conclusion then is, in our context, month-end financial reporting can definitely be also classified as BI.

Reason 3: Get immediate ROI

Typically the barriers to adoption of BI are cost and complexity. An integrated BI solution makes deployment rapid without any IT hurdles, allowing for an immediate return on investment. Because it is a module of your existing accounting package, no new relationships or extensive IT investments are required. It can seamlessly draw trusted data directly from the database of your business management and accounting system and deliver it automatically into the tool you are already compiling static reports in today, Microsoft Excel, making it very easy to adopt. You don’t have to be a programmer to get the data and you don’t need to be an accountant to interpret the data. A familiar Excel environment can utilize existing skills, making it simple to obtain, share and distribute information.

Integrated, Excel-based solutions make BI simple and affordable from the outset. A number of BI solutions ship with ready-to-use Excel report templates which provide immediate insight. And increased visibility into your business will improve operational efficiencies, streamline processes and ramp up productivity, giving you a rapid return on investment and helping you realize your strategic vision.

Tags: accounting, affordable, automated reporting processes, automated spreadsheets, BI in Excel, Business Intelligence, decision-making, Excel report template, excel-based, Excel-based BI, financial reports, integrated BI solution, ready-to-use report, return on investment, SMMEs

I’m not one that typically uses public platforms to vent personal frustrations but when I see senseless bureaucracy I can’t let it go without comment and I have witnessed new levels of bureaucratic bone headedness by way of applying to the Canadian government to open a regional office in Vancouver, British Columbia as a base for our North American regional expansion plans. The official party line (read political spin from a detached government official) came from Minister Van Loan, the Canadian Minister of International Trade who during the Vancouver Winter Olympics earlier this year was quoted as saying “Canada has a very open and business-friendly environment that gives foreign investors the competitive edge they are looking for, our efforts to attract foreign investment, coupled with our aggressive trade agenda, directly benefit Canadian citizens by creating jobs, raising incomes and strengthening Canada’s competitive position.”. Little did this good Minister know that he created a new oxymoron when he used the term “Business-Friendly” in the Canadian context – and frankly he wouldn’t have a clue how I could make such an accusation anyway. We have invested significantly in North American IT software sector and have created new technology, new skills, new work opportunities and new revenue streams across North America and I feel it only fair to have the right to protect and leverage my investment in Canada,  and I know my Canadian business partners feel the same. Enter the bureaucrats and almost 1 full year of requesting permission to open on office so as to build relationships with our North American partners and create real employment prospects for Canadians – without success. We see it on CNN every day – the political fat cats will continue to fly around the world for economic development summits and will be quoted as “engaging in proactive and constructive dialogue around sustainable economic development to create jobs and counter the effects of the economic slowdown” or some other political claptrap, when in fact the people that genuinely want to get stuck in create new technologies, new jobs, and new revenues are locked out from doing so by some nitwitted bureaucratic red tape. It’s mind-blowing!!

Reason 2: Make insightful decisions

The ability to make better decisions and proactively solve issues is crucial to success at every level of an organization, every day. And as companies grow or face stiffer competition, the need to make these decisions based on meaningful information quickly becomes an imperative.  Most businesses need to be agile and responsive, identifying and acting upon market trends in order to gain and maintain a competitive edge. This is where traditional financial reports, summaries that are not drillable and manually-manipulated spreadsheets start to fall short. ‘Loose’ Excel spreadsheet use in particular becomes potentially dangerous as the trustworthiness and timeliness of information comes into question.

An integrated Business Intelligence solution successfully addresses the number one pain point of many business software end users – reporting that is inadequate and inflexible – making it a necessity in today’s aggressive market place. Reports that are delivered weeks overdue in a format that is rigid, impractical and disjointed cannot provide the intelligence necessary for insightful decision-making. And while the volume of information that needs to be processed continues to grow, time and resources are limited. The focus needs to shift from capturing lots of data, to providing accessible information that gives you a clear understanding of the transactional history in your database, so you can forecast and plan for the coming years based on a clear picture of the financial footprint of your past.

BI can provide real-time automated reports, executable at the click of a button, which draw up-to-date trusted data directly from a company’s existing accounting package and deliver a single version of the truth. The data has always been there, but BI puts it into an easily digestible format and gets the right information to the right people, when they need it. Even better is when the data is delivered in pre-formatted Excel reports and dashboards that can be drilled down into for transactional details. Excel-based BI allows businesses to continue to use Excel as their preferred data sharing application but eliminates ‘spreadsheet chaos’. No more cutting and pasting repetitively, no more human error, no more doubt about data accuracy. Operational teams can now easily customize, manipulate and distribute meaningful information in the familiar face of Excel, while maintaining its accuracy, obtaining insight into trends, year-on-year analyses and drill-down transactional details, all on demand and in a meaningful format. BI paves the way for true collaboration across a business so more people have access to information they need to make smart, strategic decisions, faster. Teams can collaborate more effectively, people are more productive, and decision-makers are more proactive.

Tags: analyze information, automated reporting processes, automated spreadsheets, BI in Excel, Business Intelligence, decision-making, departmental reporting, drill down, Excel report template, excel-based, Excel-based BI, financial reports, integrated BI solution, management dashboard, ready-to-use report, real-time report

I recently read an excerpt from a book by Bill Quain titled, PRO-SUMER POWER! In it he postulates that “If the Internet were nothing more than a way to send e-mail, it would rank as one of the greatest inventions in history.” There is no dispute that the internet has fundamentally changed the way we communicate, with topics such as “e-jail” reflecting the unintended consequence of these leaps forward in technology. But through some very progressive and insightful thinking, Quain goes on to describe the internet as much more, he says, “The Internet is a library. A phone book. A daily newspaper. A video arcade. A travel agent. A museum. A bank. A stockbroker. An art gallery. An encyclopaedia. A virtual office. A photo album. A music store. A video store. A meeting room. A car dealership. A bookstore. A giant mall. Well, you get the idea.” This to me sums up how exciting new technology is and will be, but equally how challenging it is going to be for software vendor to stay abreast of consumer demands, because surely as more and more of the pre Internet generation (those that know what it is to distribute a memorandum written on company stationery via an internal distribution system in a corporate office) become accustomed to what the internet can do, and as the post Internet generation (those that socially have met more people through the internet than through pubs and clubs) mature into management and leadership positions in business – so there is increasingly going to be a demand for more “internet enabled” technology. What does this mean for us as Business Intelligence Vendors?

Business Intelligence (BI) will give companies a competitive advantage during the next decade and there are many compelling reasons why mid-sized businesses should make it a priority to invest in an integrated Excel-based BI solution sooner rather than later. Below is just one reason why mid-market enterprises need BI.

Reason 1: Automate reporting processes

All companies face constant pressure to increase profitability, improve cash flow, reduce costs, and reduce risk in order to improve financial performance. Automation is, by definition, a method of controlling a particular process in order to increase reliability and efficiency, often through reducing human intervention to a minimum. And very often improved company performance comes from ensuring that your workforce spend their time as effectively as possible.  An integrated BI solution automates a business’s reporting processes, drawing data from your accounting package, upon request, thereby eliminating manual report preparation and repetitive data extracts, automating spreadsheets and providing you with up-to-date, accurate and well-presented reports for informed decision-making.

The automation of the traditional financial reporting process not only improves efficiencies, saving accounting / bookkeeping staff valuable hours each month, but maintains data integrity and provides accurate and timeous information in a meaningful format. There is also no longer a need to manually sort through static reports and recompile data into a format that can be used to analyze information. By providing real-time reports on demand, BI plays a significant role in creating time-savings and increased productivity and allows you to start using the information in your system to more effectively manage the business.

Tags: automated reporting processes, automated spreadsheets, BI in Excel, Business Intelligence, decision-making, Excel, Excel-based BI, financial reports, integrated BI solution, SMMEs

In a recent BBC debate intended to gather opinion from leading technologist’s about the future of technology there appeared to be a number of common themes. Primarily the internet will be an easily accessible and relatively low cost network of billions of devices dominated by high powered instant access mobile devices. Interestingly, there appears to be disagreement on whether the increased transparency offered by 24/7/365 access, gained at the cost of reduced privacy, will actually lead to advancement in our societies or whether all this new technology will in fact beset us all with some new forms of hitherto unheard of cyber terrorism. Whether English would be the global language of the internet is inconclusive, but aside from the multiple topics that the subject gives rise to, it is almost universally unanimous that by 2020 an increasing number of economically active people will be working within “virtual worlds” which are likely to be more productive than the offline environment we are accustomed in 2010. 

It’s hard not to steer down the internet discussion when considering technology of the future, but what else is going to change the landscape. Business Intelligence will not be immune to the profound changes that no doubt will follow in the next decade – so have you considered what will Business Intelligence will look like in 2020?

ALCHEMEX is the leading developer, enabler and support-provider of affordable Excel-based Business Intelligence (BI) software for small to medium enterprises.  Alchemex reporting software provides an integrated, automated, and Excel-based BI solution, presenting preformatted drillable Excel reports, executable at the click of a button. As more and more small and medium enterprises recognize the need for BI, what makes Alchemex the obvious choice?

 

Reason 1

The software was designed from the ground up with small and medium sized companies’ needs in mind, and not harvested from tier one complex and expensive BI products

1. Licensing is tiered to cater for your basic user up to the more advanced
2. It specifically addresses serious challenges around financial reporting – which is prevalent worldwide – like Departmental reporting, GL segmentation, project reporting.
3. It caters well for consolidated reporting from multiple sources, the envy of all small and mid size corporations.
4. It is supported by a whole product offering of BI Community, free webinars, Online Training Academy, which is important for a small business with limited resources.

 

Reason 2

ALCHEMEX provides BI that is easy to use and affordable due to a familiar Excel interface and a powerful ready-to-use set of Excel reports for leading ERP packages to gets users up and running immediately. Alchemex’s integrated BI solutions provide out-of-the-box report templates that draw real-time data directly from the source data residing in a company’s accounting, business management or payroll package, and deliver it automatically in the familiar face of Excel. Users can choose from a number of different layouts so do not need to know how to write reports or how the data is structured to get value. They can however easily customize, manipulate and distribute the reports in Excel. Alchemex software caters for industry sweet spots i.e. financial reports (Income / Profit & Loss Statement, Balance Sheet), trend analyses, management dashboards and operational reports, all with the ability to quickly drill down to transactional details.

Reason 3

It is affordable and scalable through incremental module offerings making it priced appropriately for different levels of users. It gives the best of both worlds from fixed format reporting – like monthly financial statements and board packs – to on-the-fly analysis for the likes of sales trends or inventory evaluations. An OLAP module allows for multi-dimensional volume transaction analysis while the more explorative can have complete access to the data source with limitless flexibility to compile whatever information they require. The web module introduces authenticated widespread report distribution across the net. Alchemex reporting software’s low total cost of ownership allows broader access to data across organisation.

Reason 4

Alchemex has a proven track record with market leading vendors of accounting/ERP and payroll software in delivering integrated Business Intelligence to SMMEs. Alchemex is established and known with 10 years of delivering BI to these markets, nearly 20 000 customers, a 90% renewal rate and an expanding global presence.

 “We use Alchemex products extensively in our business. I believe that being able to obtain a ‘snapshot view’ of your business is critical in today’s business environment when there is just too much information floating about. Managers need to dedicate their skills to managing – not sifting through endless reports trying to make sense of heaps of information. Alchemex does this neatly and efficiently – with no fuss at all and delivers this information ‘on demand’ and through Excel. What more could you ask for?”
Steven Cohen, Managing Director, Sage Softline Pastel

 

Reason 5

Alchemex software is integrated into the ERP / payroll software, meaning that it is developed with and supported by the particular vendor as a module of their software, a trusted brand extension. This removes technology hurdles around installation and support, leverages a company’s existing software investment, ensures the module is priced appropriately for the market and allows for widespread adoption. For South Africa’s ERP market leader, Sage subsidiary Softline Pastel, Alchemex’s integrated BI module, the Pastel Business Intelligence Centre, has become one of their best selling modules. Alchemex also powers Sage Accpac Intelligence, Sage MAS Intelligence, Simply Accounting Intelligence, the Sybiz Business Intelligence Centre and the VIP Business Intelligence Manager worldwide.

Isn’t it time for you to choose Alchemex Business Intelligence? Simply.

Tags: accounting, affordable, analyze information, automated reporting processes, automated spreadsheets, BI in Excel, Business Intelligence, Business Intelligence Centre, consolidation, departmental reporting, drill down, ERP, Excel, Excel report template, financial reports, GL segmentation, integrated BI solution, management dashboard, OLAP, ready-to-use report, reporting, Sage Accpac Intelligence, Sage MAS Intelligence, scalable, Simply Accounting Intelligence, small business, SMMEs, trend analysis

Why is BI currently so topical for business owners and executives in mid-size organisations? Can Excel be considered a part of the picture in defining the perfect BI solution? The BI industry is heavily laden with technical concepts such as Meta Data, Data Marts, Data Warehouses, EUQR, OLAP, Dashboards, Scorecards, Advanced Visualisation, Predictive Modelling… and thanks to Microsoft, the  recent release of their latest and greatest “power pivot” concept . There is no end to the list of BI acronyms designed to bedazzle – or should that be beguile – businesses around the globe. What are all these geeky BI dictionary terms, and why do we have to put up with them? Surely its simpler than that, can’t we just agree that the vast majority of users actually just want information in an Excel spreadsheet? What role should Excel play in the BI industry in future and should Excel and BI even be allowed in the same sentence? Absolutely say some, definitely not say others – so where’s the middle ground?

Typically the barriers to adoption of BI are cost and complexity. Small businesses face tighter budgets, less sophistication and fewer people. An integrated BI solution makes deployment rapid without any IT hurdles, allowing for an immediate return on investment. Because it is a module of your existing accounting package, no new relationships or extensive IT investments are required. It can simply draw trusted data directly from the database of your business management and accounting system and deliver it automatically into the tool you are already compiling static reports in today, Microsoft Excel, making it very easy to adopt. You don’t have to be a programmer to get the data and you don’t need to be an accountant to interpret the data. A familiar Excel environment can utilize existing skills, making it simple to obtain, share and distribute information. Integrated, Excel-based solutions make BI simple and affordable from the outset. And increased visibility into your business will improve operational efficiencies, streamline processes and ramp up productivity, giving you a rapid return on investment and helping you realize your strategic vision.

Tags: accounting, accounting package, affordable, analyze information, automated reporting processes, automated spreadsheets, BI in Excel, Business Intelligence, excel-based, financial reports, information, integrated BI solution, productivity, ready-to-use report, return on investment, small business