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Financial reporting and analytics solutions

Jennene Kelly — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 09:28:40 +0000

Businesses decide to implement new ERP systems for a variety of reasons, including increased efficiencies, better inventory control, stronger cash flow and capital management, increased revenue, and reduced costs. In this downloadable guide, we explore the various benefits that can be achieved by deploying a modern ERP software package. We delve into detail on the advantages of robust ERP systems and provide real-world examples of how those benefits can be achieved.

We also address the top complaint that we hear from business leaders who have recently implemented a new system, namely, shortcomings in the financial reporting and analysis tools that come with those systems out of the box.

“We address the top complaint that we hear from business leaders.”

This guide provides an overview of the practical business benefits of ERP software, and it explores ways to enhance the value of ERP by ensuring that systems deliver real-time visibility to business performance, confidence in the accuracy of information, and a strong foundation for making insightful, well-timed business decisions.

Contents:

- Introduction
- Improve Working Capital
- Increase Revenue
- Reduce Costs
- Improve Compliance
- Improve F&A and Tighten Internal Controls
- Retire Legacy Systems
- Software Features and Benefits that Matter to Finance

Download the white paper: Financial Reporting and Analytics Solutions: Why, When, and How to Invest Wisely

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From manual to modern planning processes

Jennene Kelly — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 03:44:49 +0000

As companies grow, they often need to develop new systems and processes to scale up more effectively as the size and complexity of the business increases. Systems that might have worked well in the past can become increasingly unwieldy as new people join the company, as responsibilities in the organization shift, and as business processes and practices mature.

How can growing businesses move from manual, time-consuming financial planning processes to modern planning processes that meet the needs of all stakeholders? It all starts with making the business case to business leadership.

It all starts with making the business case to business leadership.

In this free downloadable guide, you’ll learn:

Some common pain points that growing businesses experience with planning, forecasting, and budgeting
Key strategies for building a sustainable process that sets your team on a path to working smarter rather than harder
Advice for FP&A professionals as they prepare to persuade business leaders of the need for robust planning tools
Key attributes to look for in the best financial planning software

Download the whitepaper: From Manual to Modern Planning Processes: Making the Business Case

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Whitepaper: Data warehouse automation and ERP

Jennene Kelly — Thu, 29 Jul 2021 21:27:38 +0000

Upgrading an ERP system presents a number of challenges to many organisations. However, many of these challenges can be alleviated by integrating a business intelligence (BI) solution during the upgrade process. This is especially true if the BI solution is based on a data warehouse and implemented using a data warehouse automation platform.

Data conversion is one of the key activities involved in upgrading an ERP system. Therefore, it is also an appropriate time to assess the quality of the data that will be converted. Businesses that decide to implement a data warehouse during the ERP will discover that doing so provides an opportunity to address all their data quality issues.

“The tasks involved in the ERP upgrade process become more straightforward and less time-consuming when a data warehouse and BI solution is part of the upgrade.”

Traditionally, report conversion is another key activity of the ERP upgrade process. However, when businesses are implementing a data warehouse at the same time, they have an opportune moment to reevaluate their reporting needs to avoid spending time converting obsolete reports.

This whitepaper will examine the challenges of data migration and report conversion in an ERP upgrade and how integrating a data warehouse-based BI solution into the project can help.

Download the whitepaper: How implementing a Data Warehouse Solution can accelerate and facilitate an ERP upgrade

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Tech consultancy gets single source of truth for reporting

Jennene Kelly — Thu, 22 Jul 2021 01:00:00 +0000

Published on the 22/07/2021 | Written by insightsoftware

AT A GLANCE

Quint

INDUSTRY

Business and IT Consulting Services

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

Integrate data from the three various source systems
A solution for effective data normalization and consolidation to simplify reporting

SOLUTION

Jet Analytics

BUSINESS BENEFITS

Automated data preparation making instant reports
Fast and low-maintenance data transformation
Can easily generate complete financial reports by themselves

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Insight Software
W: insightsoftware
E: aunz@insightsoftware.com
AU: +61 300 662 649
NZ: +64 4 473 7137

With increasing amounts of data to report on a solution was required to simplify reporting…

Quint is a global consultancy, training, and technology company. It supports organisations in designing and implementing digital transformation solutions. Quint’s key focus areas are digital strategy, data activation, lean agile enterprise, sourcing advisory, IT governance, enterprise cloud, enterprise DevOps, and enterprise automation.

The Challenge
Quint’s Malaysia branch had been using Microsoft Dynamics NAV for many years, integrated with its proprietary ERP system, Quint Information System (QIS). As the organisation grew, Quint decided to migrate all its systems into a new ERP, Odoo. However, with increasing amounts of data to report on, and with legacy data still residing in NAV and QIS, they needed a solution for effective data normalization and consolidation to simplify reporting and to establish a single source of truth.

After comparing different solutions on the market, they opted for insightsoftware’s Jet Analytics as a data preparation, automation, and modelling solution. Thanks to Jet Analytics, they could successfully integrate data from the three various source systems: legacy accounting data from NAV, legacy sales data from QIS, and combined accounting and sales data from Odoo. They also chose Jet Reports as a front-end financial reporting tool within Excel.

Jet Analytics is flexible and easy to use. If you have some basic database knowledge, you will discover even more possibilities with Jet.

Yin-Ting Chua, Software Development Engineer

Building to success with Jet
Using Jet Analytics and Jet Reports combined, Quint has been able to automate data preparation and make it report-ready in an instant. They can easily publish the data to their users with the built-in Jet Reports scheduler, which generates reports to the organisation’s cloud storage. In order to fully utilize the aggregated data, they are published to Google Data Source for report visualization via Google Data Studio.

Jet Analytics has allowed Quint to enable fast and low-maintenance data transformation. The data preparation and automation are done in a matter of minutes.

The finance team uses Jet Reports to generate and analyze monthly consolidated financial reports, always using reliable, single-source data prepared in Jet Analytics. “Jet Reports provides the finance team with a clear view of consolidated data within Excel,” said Yin-Ting Chua, Software Development Engineer at Quint. “Also, the team can easily generate complete financial reports by themselves.”.

By implementing Jet Analytics and Jet Reports, Quint has been able to enjoy several benefits:

The finance team can easily access a common, reliable single source of truth collecting data from multiple source systems.
Users can query data from Jet Reports in Excel without the need for P/SQL programming knowledge.
Time-savings with data preparation, automation, and modelling done in a matter of minutes

Navigating Success
With simplified data management and reduced dependency on the IT department to create reports, finance users can now access the data they need and generate reports by themselves.

About This Vendor

More Case Studies

Jet boost for Beef + Lamb finance

August 28, 2017 | insightsoftware

For any business, accurate financial reporting provides the basis on which to make decisions and track performance over time…

Jet-powered: The data-driven motor company

July 11, 2016 | insightsoftware

European Motor Distributors implements Jet Enterprise for operational intelligence…

Revenue boost for wholesale distributor Kinsey’s Archery

August 6, 2014 | insightsoftware

A wholesale distributor of hunting and fishing equipment, Kinsey’s Archery has served thousands of customers for over 50 years…

UK cider house achieves real-time sales analysis

August 1, 2014 | insightsoftware

Westons Cider, an award-winning cider producer based in Herefordshire, England, was searching for reporting flexibility and in-depth profitability analysis for their growing business…

Amnesty International embraces jet propelled reports

June 8, 2014 | insightsoftware

Amnesty International was dealing with an outdated reporting system and needed to upgrade but the results went far beyond simple reporting…

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Building a BI strategy: Why it is important

Jennene Kelly — Thu, 20 May 2021 04:08:44 +0000

One of the chief complaints that we hear over and over again from business executives is that they still struggle to get clear, accurate, and timely information out of their business software systems. They know that they have a lot of data, but the process of extracting, organizing, and analyzing that information always seems much harder than it should be. That is precisely why insightsoftware exists–to make the process simpler, more powerful, and accessible to everyone in the organisation.

We recommend that business leaders begin with a clear, actionable strategy for business intelligence (BI). BI has rapidly grown in popularity among small to mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) in recent years, largely because technology has advanced to the point at which powerful analytics have become affordable for virtually any sized organisation. In fact, when you consider the tangible business benefits that powerful reporting can provide, an investment in BI tools delivers a very strong ROI.

BI can be something that effectively ‘turns the light on’ in any organisation.

Unfortunately, BI is still a confusing and fragmented concept to many people. Definitions vary, largely because BI is a multifaceted domain that touches on everything from internal business processes, key performance metrics, and data manipulation to integration among various business information systems and more.

BI is about how your organisation engages with data, how you measure and communicate key objectives, and how you draw insights from your data that help you manage your business more successfully. Every organisation is different, so there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach. Ultimately, it comes down to understanding where your business is today, where you want it to be in the future, and how you can forge a path to get there. Gaining that level of understanding requires an intentional approach.

Stock reporting tools just aren’t good enough
Most organisations are already using multiple different reporting tools, and they may not even be aware of just how fragmented those systems are. Think about the various software platforms your organisation uses. Most companies have an ERP system for managing day-to-day financial and operational functions. Some have a separate CRM system, which may or may not integrate with the ERP. Others run a digital marketing automation platform to develop and nurture leads, deepen engagement with existing customers, and cultivate awareness and goodwill.

Each of those systems comes with its own dedicated reporting functions. Sadly, those tools are often designed to be “just good enough.” They address the fundamental requirement for reporting, but they lack flexibility and sophistication. In many cases, those tools lack the capacity for custom reports. Very often, you cannot even modify existing reports to support the organisation’s unique, specific business processes.

In cases in which customisation is possible, it usually isn’t easily accomplished. ERP software, in particular, is notorious for the extent to which report development and customisation require highly specialized IT skills. That means allocating scarce IT resources to the task or paying expensive outside consultants to do the job. For frontline workers in finance and accounting, it means waiting days or weeks to get the needed information.

Then there is the problem of integration, or the lack thereof. When companies rely on the off-the-shelf reporting tools that come with their various software systems, they end up with a collection of reports that tell them about each of the specific domains managed by those systems.

The ERP reports can only deliver information about accounting, inventory, sales, and purchasing. There is some customer information there, but it may be limited. The CRM system contains more detailed customer information, but it may not integrate well with the transactional information in ERP. Digital marketing automation, likewise, is restricted to its own limited view of the world.

Integration can mitigate this problem of information silos to some extent, but it can only go so far. Unfortunately, many organisations have come to accept tedious workarounds as a necessary evil. The process usually goes something like this: First, you run reports from two or three different systems. Then, you export the resulting information to Excel, consolidating those into a single spreadsheet. Finally, you filter, format, and add formulas to bring it all together.

That process is incredibly time-consuming, so it precludes the possibility of running those kinds of reports frequently. The resulting information is out of date as soon as you produce the report because it came from a static copy of data that has since become stale. The manual copy/paste process also tends to introduce errors, which can ultimately result in poor business decisions.

For truly effective reporting that provides a unified view of the business, BI systems must bridge the gaps between all of the software systems that business leaders rely on to manage their organisations. A good BI platform must deliver information in real time, and it needs to be easy enough to use that anyone in the organisation can design and modify reports without specialised skills.

As You Migrate to Cloud ERP…
As organisations start down the path toward cloud ERP, it is imperative that they give careful consideration to the implications for reporting and analytics. As software vendors have transitioned to a cloud-first approach, most have taken the necessary steps of changing the way you access data. For security reasons, companies running a cloud ERP system can no longer make direct database queries using structured query language (SQL). That is a technical change, but it has profound implications for BI.

Companies that currently run Microsoft Dynamics AX, for example, will face a multitude of choices about how to access data and run reports when they migrate to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management. Companies running other ERPs will find themselves in a similar situation. Each of those choices has its unique disadvantages and brings with it some unique considerations as to system architecture, cost, performance, and long-term IT staffing requirements.

In other words, ERP customers who migrate to the cloud risk being blindsided by a relatively simple (but extremely important) technical change to the way they access ERP data. Many of the proposed new approaches to data access are driven by new technology that has not yet reached maturity. For companies seeking a reliable BI platform with a low total cost of ownership, a better approach is to seek a stable, proven reporting and analytics product designed for high performance and ease of use.

An Intentional Approach Is Critical
BI can be something that effectively “turns the light on” in any organisation. When the entire team is working from the same playbook with access to a single source of truth, everyone can focus on the same targets, working with the same KPIs to drive action and improve processes.

While technology is ultimately part of the conversation about BI, it should not be the starting point. An effective approach to BI must serve the needs of the tactical and strategic decision-makers in the organisation. It should address financial and operational reporting requirements with powerful and flexible tools that make it possible for anyone in the organisation to design and modify ad hoc reports, without needing specialized training or IT skills.

At insightsoftware, we recommend that company leaders carefully consider some key questions that impact their long-term strategy for BI:

What are the systems of record for your critical business data? These usually comprise the starting point for developing a unified approach toward reporting, bringing together information that gives business leaders a holistic, unified view of what is happening in the business. Typically, such systems include ERP and CRM, but they often include specialized industry-specific software as well.
How are people throughout your organisation currently using reporting? Which reports are decision-makers relying upon every day, every week, or every month? What happens when you need an ad hoc report?
Do your current financial reporting systems support rapid and efficient period-end closing?
Could the period-end process benefit from greater efficiency and automation? Do reconciliations and supporting worksheets automatically link to numbers that come directly from the general ledger and subledgers in the ERP system?
How timely is the information that stakeholders are getting today? Have there ever been times when you needed information on very short notice, but it was unavailable? What were the implications of that delay?
How accurate is the information that stakeholders are getting today? Are errors and inaccuracies frequently discovered after the fact? Have they resulted in meaningful costs to the company? Are there multiple versions of the truth? Does the organisation frequently struggle with arguments over ‘which number is correct?’
Is your organisation planning a migration to cloud ERP and/or cloud CRM at some point in the future? If so, it is important that you partner with a vendor that can support your needs today and in the future as you transition to the cloud.

Answering these questions will help you identify what you want to achieve with BI in the near future, and what types of benefits your organisation can achieve, both in the short term and the long term.

At insightsoftware, we focus on serving the needs of finance and accounting teams. Often, when organisations are developing a BI strategy, the unique reporting needs of the finance department are overlooked. That does not have to be the case, however. As you develop your BI and reporting strategy, there are some key factors to consider to ensure that finance’s voice is heard. Learn more about those factors now by downloading our guide entitled Five Key Factors to Consider When Evaluating Financial Reporting Software.

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Whitepaper: How to futureproof your financial report builds

Jennene Kelly — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 00:04:22 +0000

During periods of rapid change, it is especially important for leaders to have real-time access to information based on a reliable single source of truth.  Unfortunately, keeping up with evolving requirements for operational and financial reporting usually creates an ongoing cost burden.

Most off-the-shelf ERP reporting tools fall short of the mark because they lack the flexibility to adapt quickly. They typically require specialised technical expertise and are not able to combine data from multiple software systems. Over the long term, the costs of reporting can really add up.

When reporting becomes a money pit, it’s time to look for a new solution.

With the right technology tools, business leaders can increase the speed and agility of the business, gain insights based on real-time data, and reduce total cost of ownership.  By planning ahead, businesses can be more adaptable as the organisation’s needs change, as technology evolves, and as new needs emerge.

Learn how to prepare for the future and help your business gain accurate real-time insights, lower your costs, and increase agility.

Contents:

Introduction

PROBLEM 1:
The Business Changes

PROBLEM 2:
The Software Changes

PROBLEM 3:
Information Requirements Change

THE SOLUTION:
Information at the Speed of Business

Download the whitepaper: How to futureproof your financial report builds

Whitepaper: Streamline your financial year-end close

Jennene Kelly — Mon, 09 Nov 2020 23:47:39 +0000

If you’ve ever been in the midst of the festive celebrations and are suddenly hit with dread of an upcoming, cumbersome, financial year-end close, you’re not alone. Not only do you have to complete the usual processes involved with a month-end close, but you have the additional tasks of working back through each month to make any needed adjustments, preparing tax reporting, and planning for the next year. Getting the job done requires a real, concerted team effort. Sometimes you might need to involve IT or external consultants to help pull reports. This can take more time and result in errors due to misunderstanding or miscommunication.

This adds up to greater productivity, less stress and more accurate data to drive strategic insights and identify efficiencies.

The year-end close is likely to be the time when you feel the most frustration toward your ERP – surely there must be an easier way than relying on a platform that isn’t customised to your year-end needs.

In this guide we discuss each of your likely pain points throughout the different stages of a year-end close, and the best ways to resolve them.

Contents:

Tackling year-end close challenges
- Reporting
- Consolidation
- Tax provision and reporting
- Operational transfer pricing
- Planning
Summary of potential struggles
The right year-end close tools to make the process a breeze

Download the white paper: Streamline Your Financial Year-End Close Process to Free Up Time for Analysis

…

Five key factors to consider when evaluating financial reporting software

Jennene Kelly — Sun, 08 Nov 2020 00:34:35 +0000

Frustrated with constantly trying to fill the gaps between what business intelligence (BI) tools provide, and the actual reporting needs of your finance team? Does your team often resort to dumping ERP data into Excel and then manually manipulating it? If so, it’s probably time to consider financial reporting software.

When it comes to financial reporting, companies are quickly learning that business intelligence and financial intelligence just aren’t the same thing.

But how do you know what to look for? In this whitepaper, you will learn the five key factors to consider when evaluating financial reporting solutions.

Here are five key factors to consider when evaluating financial reporting solutions:

Finance-owned vs IT-owned
Direct, timely data access
Drill into detail
Multi-source connectivity
Time to value

Download whitepaper: Five key factors to consider when evaluating financial reporting software

…

Global brewer speeds up financial reporting

Jennene Kelly — Thu, 05 Nov 2020 00:42:55 +0000

Published on the 05/11/2020 | Written by insightsoftware

AT A GLANCE

Carlsberg China

INDUSTRY

Food and beverage

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

Combine data from more than eight Microsoft Dynamics NAV databases
To make it easier to navigate the NAV systems to find the required data
A solution to cope with their data volumes and still provide fast query response times

SOLUTION

Dynamics NAV

BUSINESS BENEFITS

A faster month-end reporting process
Minimal technical expertise to build reports
Instantly run comparative reports across different date ranges

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Insight Software
W: insightsoftware
E: aunz@insightsoftware.com
AU: +61 300 662 649
NZ: +64 4 473 7137

Carlsberg offers 20 different brews from 25 breweries in China, with volumes of data to match…

Carlsberg was one of the first international brewers to export beer to China, starting over 150 years ago. Today, The Carlsberg Brewery Guangdong in Huizhou supplies products to mainland China, Hong Kong, and the Macau markets. Carlsberg offers 20 different brews from 25 breweries in China, catering to consumers on various drinking occasions.

The challenge
To produce their financial and management reports, the finance team at Carlsberg China needed to combine data from more than eight Microsoft Dynamics NAV databases. Because of the data volumes and number of databases involved, end users found it hard to navigate their NAV systems to find the data they needed.

This meant the finance team was forced to export data from each NAV system and manually stitch them together in Excel to generate the reports they needed. This process consumed a lot of time and manual effort and had to be repeated from scratch, each month.

“Users can easily build reports by themselves to support their analysis.”

The team at Carlsberg recognised that they needed a solution that could consolidate data from multiple companies and databases into a single data warehouse, without requiring a lengthy implementation process, or relying on technical specialists. The chosen solution would also need to cope with their data volumes and still provide fast query response times for their more than 300 end users.

Facing these challenges, they chose to deploy Jet Analytics and Jet Reports.

Building to success with Jet
Using Jet Analytics, Carlsberg China was able to work with pre-built content to quickly create a data warehouse. Jet Analytics also provided multiple cubes to support the team’s different analysis needs while delivering sub-second query response times.

Using Jet Reports, finance team members were able to leverage their existing Excel skills to quickly and easily create the reports they needed, saving time and eliminating the need to dump data from NAV into static spreadsheets.

By implementing Jet Analytics and Jet Reports across the organisation, Carlsberg China has seen many positive results:

The team has already shaved one day off their month-end reporting process
Previously, users were not able to generate reports, but now they are self-sufficient, because they can easily build the reports they need, without requiring technical expertise, by using Jet Reports against the data warehouse
They can now easily and instantly run comparative reports across different date ranges using a simple pivot-style drag-and-drop table from OLAP Cubes. Previously, getting this level of visibility took weeks for them to produce manually.

Navigating success
With simplified navigation of data and reduced dependency on the IT department to create reports, the finance team can now create the reports they need, at any time.

“We now have a reliable and timely data source providing a single version of the truth for our financial reporting. Users can easily build reports by themselves to support their analysis. We can also now view our data at an aggregate level instead of just viewing a detailed listing, which makes it faster and easier for users to navigate their financial data to make informed decisions,” says Chen Johnson, BI Engineer

Source: This article was originally sourced from insightsoftware

KPIs and Metrics for Finance Departments in 2020

Jennene Kelly — Tue, 27 Oct 2020 02:35:35 +0000

A finance department Key Performance Indicator (KPI) or metric is a clearly defined quantifiable measure used to evaluate a company’s financial performance. From an external perspective, investors compare the financial KPIs of different companies to determine which is a better investment. Internally, companies use financial metrics to evaluate prospective investments and track internal performance from a financial perspective.

Utilising KPIs within your Finance Department
Financial KPIs are a very broad topic. However, there are two common uses for financial KPIs. The first one is financial reporting, where your company is conveying information to shareholders. The other use is for internal auditing and process improvement.

Due to the number of financial performance indicators, a good approach to take is tiering the metrics. High level indicators should be directly reported to the CFO of a company, while higher resolution indicators should be analysed by the finance department. In this post, we will go over some finance manager KPIs, KRAs and KPIs for a finance department, and how financial reporting software is able to enhance this process.

KPIs for Finance Managers and the CFO
As we mentioned above, finance managers and CFOs need high level KPIs readily available to them so they can make decisions that impact the direction a company will take in the future. At insightsoftware, we came up with what we believe are the most important finance manager KPI examples:

Quick Ratio – As a CFO or financial manager, you want to quickly check the financial health of your company. This ratio does just that. The quick ratio determines a company’s ability to immediately cover its short-term financial obligations.Quick ratio = (Cash + Marketable Securities + Accounts Receivable) / Current Liabilities
Current Ratio – Another financial metric commonly used to assess the health of a company is the current ratio. It is like the quick ratio, but rather than checking if a company can immediately cover obligations, it checks to see if a company can meet its obligations within one year.Current Ratio = Current Assets / Current Liabilities
Working Capital – This key financial metric is used to measure the amount of money a company has available at their disposal, ready to be put to work. This can help a financial manager decide how aggressive a company should be in pursuing growth opportunities.Working Capital = Current Assets – Current Liabilities
Accounts Payable Turnover – It is good practice to keep the accounts payable turnover metric readily available. This financial KPI measures the amount of time it takes a company to pay its suppliers and is a strong leading indicator of a company’s financial position. If the ratio starts to decrease, it is a sign of potential cash flow problems.Accounts Payable (AP) Turnover = Total Supply Purchases / ((Beginning AP – Ending AP) / 2)
Cash Conversion Cycle (CCC) – This is a financial performance indicator that measures how many days it takes a company to convert its goods back to cash. To do this, the metric analyses the number of days to sell inventory, collect receivables, and pay its bills. Ideally, a CFO would like to see this value stay the same, or decrease over time.CCC = Days of Inventory Outstanding + Days Sales Outstanding – Days Payables Outstanding
Return on Equity (ROE) – For a finance manager or CFO, shareholders are very important. One of the financial metrics that shareholders care most about is ROE, as it can be used to assess how efficiently shareholder’s equity is being utilised. This metric is often used when comparing two companies in the same industry to see which is a better investment.Return on Equity = Net Income / Average Shareholders’ Equity
Total Debt-to-Equity Ratio – This financial key performance indicator is used to measure a company’s liabilities against its shareholder’s equity. Finance managers should pay attention to this metric as it identifies how much debt is being used to grow a company. A high ratio can be worrying as an economic downturn could spell disaster.Total-Debt-to-Equity = (Short-Term Debt + Long-Term Debt) / Shareholder’s Equity
Gross Profit Margin – Gross profit margin is every CFO’s go-to metric. It calculates how much money is left from the revenue after removing the cost of goods sold and expresses it as a percentage of revenue. This shows how profitable your products are.Gross Profit Margin = (Net Sales – Cost of Goods Sold) / Net Sales
Net Profit Margin – This key financial metric is often referred to as the bottom line. At the end of the day, this is what is most important to any CFO, financial manager, or shareholder: how much money the company is making relative to revenue. Ideally, this number is always positive, and the higher, the better.Net Profit Margin = Net Income / Net Sales
Earnings Per Share (EPS) – This is one of the most important financial KPIs when it comes to reporting. Almost every analyst or news outlet will be touting a company’s EPS when it comes to announcing quarterly results. As such, it is a crucial financial metric that every CFO must pay attention to.EPS = (Net Income – Preferred Dividends) / (End-of-Period Common Shares Outstanding)
Compound Average Growth Rate (CAGR) – Your shareholders always want to know how much the company is growing, whether it be revenue, profit, or market share. This financial KPI calculates how much a certain aspect of the business has grown on a compound basis. For a CFO, this is a very important figure to be able to report to shareholders.
Operating cash flow – The operating cash flow financial metric is one of the most basic metrics used by CFOs. It measures how much income is generated from regular business operations. In a healthy company, this number should be positive, and can be used to help determine how much CAPEX a company can afford.Operating Cash Flow = EBIT + Depreciation – Taxes – Change in Working Capital
Operating expense – Commonly known as OPEX, this financial performance indicator is used to track how much it costs a business to carry on day-to day-operations. These expenses include rent, inventory costs, insurance, payroll, research and development, etc. This is important to financial managers, as the easiest way to increase profits is by cutting costs.
EBITDA & EBITDA growth – This might be a bit of a mouthful, but it stands for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortisation. This financial metric is used as an alternative for to net income, as it gives a more precise measure of corporate earnings by leaving out strategic accounting. EBITDA and EBITDA growth are best tracked using financial reporting software as they are very data intensive.
Employee count – Every good manager knows how many employees they have at any given time. This financial key performance indicator can also be utilised in conjunction with other KPIs to give insightful data on a per employee basis.

Now that you have had a good look through those sample KPIs for finance managers, we should look at the KPIs for the finance department. But just before we do that, we will review what makes an ideal KPI for the finance team.

What Makes a Good Key Performance Indicator for the Finance Department?
Financial managers and CFOs should be concerning themselves with KPIs and metrics that give a holistic view of how the company is performing. This helps them make decisions on a company-wide basis, and it is up to the finance department to implement these changes on a micro scale. With this in mind, we will discuss what kind of characteristics you should look for when assigning KRAs and KPIs to the finance department.

High resolution. These metrics need to look at the nitty gritty details of the company. They should scrutinise each process and business segment to see where bottlenecks occur, or to see where performance can be increased.
Project specific. Any time a company is looking at starting a new project or making an investment, the finance department should be analysing all the possible outcomes from a financial perspective and summarising it in a nice report.
Efficiency oriented. This might seem like a bit of a catch-all characteristic but hear us out. Efficiency oriented KPIs should be used to track different business segments and help develop processes that make the segments more efficient.

You might have noticed something in common with all those characteristics. All of them are low level, almost what you would call ‘hands on’ KPIs. That is because the finance department is meant to be monitoring, analysing, and looking for ways to implement change.

KPIs for the Finance Department
The finance department of any company often works tirelessly in the background to ensure financial operations run smoothly so other departments can focus on their own objectives. To do this, there are specific key performance indicators for the finance department to keep track of. Here are some examples of those financial key performance indicators:

Net Present Value (NPV) – This financial metric is used on a project by project basis to determine if an endeavor will be profitable. To do this, reconcile future cashflows over a period of time as a present value. This is a perfect example of a KPI for the finance department.Net Present Value = Today’s Value of Expected Cash Flows – Today’s Value of Invested Cash
Future Value (FV) – The future value financial KPI is also commonly used by finance departments when evaluating the value of prospective projects or endeavors. To do so, this financial performance indicator uses an assumed rate of return to estimate the value of an investment at a future date.Future Value = Present Value * (1 + Interest Rate)^Time
Reports produced per finance employee – This key performance indicator for the finance department is best used for internal audits. While quantity isn’t necessarily better than quality, this financial metric helps measure the performance of the finance team, and potentially identify areas of improvement. The use of a financial reporting solution can often improve this performance metric.
Finance report error rate – Every finance team would love this metric to read zero. However, that is not always the case. Like the KPI previously mentioned, this is another area where financial reporting solutions can provide finance departments with the proper tools to get the job done.
Payback period – This is a good KPI for the finance team. The payback period metric is best used on a project-by-project basis to determine the amount of time it takes an investment to pay for itself. This helps the finance department assess which projects seem the most promising.Payback Period = Initial Capital Cost for Project / Annual Savings or Earnings from Project
Internal Rate of Return (IRR) – The IRR financial KPI calculates the rate of return required for a net present value of zero. If this IRR is above the company’s required rate of return, the investment should be considered by the finance team. This metric is best used when comparing multiple investment opportunities and deciding which is the best, with a higher IRR being more attractive.
Return on investment (ROI) – It would take way too much time for a CFO or finance manager to review the ROI of every single investment a company made. As such, this falls onto the finance department to keep track of. This task can easily be automated using a financial KPI dashboard. Keeping this data safe and easily accessible on a dashboard helps with comparing past investments to estimate the performance of future investments.Return on Investment = (Current Value of Investment – Cost of Investment) / Cost of Investment
Total debt-to-asset ratio – As the name implies, this financial KPI measures the total amount of debt a company has and compares it to the company’s assets. This is a ratio that is better kept on the lower side. If the ratio is too high, a company may have difficulties acquiring future loans, as it shows that they have a higher chance of defaulting on their obligations. At the same time, all companies should make use of at least a little bit of debt to help fund expansion.Total-Debt-to-Asset = (Short-Term Debt + Long-Term Debt) / Total Assets
Interest coverage ratio – When you borrow money from anyone, the minimum amount you must pay is the interest. Is your company in a good position to do that? This KPI indicator for the finance department measures a company’s ability to cover its interest expense with its earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT).Interest Coverage = EBIT / Interest Expense
Time to conduct budget and planning process – This is one of the top financial KPIs for a finance department. Everyone dreads the budget and planning process. That is why there is a finance metric to measure the amount of time it takes. However, just because there is a metric that tracks time, it doesn’t mean you can slack on quality.
Time to close – When it comes to the end of the quarter, there never seems to be enough time to close. Everyone is always in a panic, sending out emails to make sure all the expenses get submitted. Being able to close quickly and efficiently is the sign of a company that functions well—or one that uses good financial reporting software.

The finance department has a wide range of objectives that they must meet, with a variety of KPIs that they use to help them reach these objective. However, some of these tasks can easily be streamlined and even automated using high-quality financial reporting software solutions.

Streamline your KPI reporting with Financial Reporting Software
At insightsoftware, we eat, sleep, and breathe financial reporting. It is what we are passionate about. As such, we want to make the reporting process as easy as possible for our clients through the use of KPI dashboards. Here are some of the benefits to using a financial reporting solution:

Automated data collection. A KPI dashboard is a very powerful data collection tool. Our software is designed to be compatible with your existing ERP, so data extraction is as easy as one-two-three.
Data consolidation. Since your data is automatically extracted and collected for you, it is now conveniently all in one place. Gone are the days of emailing spreadsheets or passing a thumb drive to your neighbor.
Prebuilt KPI templates. Our software is out of the box ready. All the KPIs you could possibly think of are ready to go.
Generate reports instantly. When you couple prebuilt templates with automatic data collection, what do you get? Instant reports. Your finance department doesn’t have to stress about compiling reports for the CFO anymore. This will greatly reduce your time to close.

…

Five Excel tips for better budgeting and forecasting

Jennene Kelly — Tue, 20 Oct 2020 01:31:12 +0000

Excel has such a long history in business accounting and corporate finance that it has inevitably become the butt of some easy jokes. Despite the complexity of the program and its decades-long contributions to the world of finance, there’s no question that many professionals have their own personal frustrations with Microsoft’s iconic spreadsheet solution.

As finance technology and financial management solutions evolve and incorporate artificial intelligence, cloud-based software, and other tools and features that enhance financial practices, it’s easy to assume that Excel’s relevance to businesses has either declined in recent years or is operating on borrowed time. But the reality is that Excel, for all of its limitations and warts, still offers value to many businesses and continues to be relied upon in a wide range of use cases.

Excel isn’t perfect, but some of the challenges of using the software have more to do with the user’s lack of expertise.

Excel isn’t perfect, but some of the challenges of using the software have more to do with the user’s lack of expertise. In many cases, you can improve the value Excel offers your budgeting and forecasting activities just by taking time to learn some of its nuances.

To that end, we’ve compiled five useful tips to help you improve your use of Excel when budgeting and forecasting for your business.

1. Use file-sharing tools to make sure all collaborators are working from the most up-to-date spreadsheet
At large organisations, the budgeting and forecasting process isn’t a one-person job. Collaboration tools are essential to managing large projects and coordinating tasks and workflows among members of the finance team. But even when workflows are being effectively managed, the efficiency of this collaboration is largely dependent on the reliability of your data.

All collaborators need access to the same data sets, which themselves must represent the most up-to-date financial information possible. By integrating Excel with financial consolidation tools, you can ensure these data sets are regularly updated to support your finance team and reduce the risk of data discrepancies.

Excel makes it easy to manage large sets of data across multiple spreadsheets, all of which can be used in enterprise budgeting and forecasting. But your finance team also needs the tools in place to ensure that all collaborators are using the most recent files, which means you need an external platform connected to Excel that organises these versions and ensures collaborators are working off the same information. In the long run, this reduces your error rates and streamlines collaboration on key financial tasks.

2. Master advanced formulas and functions offered in Excel
If you’re using Excel for budgeting and forecasting, you’re probably familiar with the basic formulas and functions offered by the software. But you can increase the value of Excel in your financial tasks by taking time to master some of the more advanced functions that may offer particular benefits to finance professionals.

A few of these advanced functions include:

VLOOKUP: This function makes it easy to search through a database and pull information related to an item when all of the items in a list have a unique identifier. This has all sorts of applications, from finance to human resources, but finance teams might use it for invoicing, adding up costs, tracking spending or unpaid balances, and many other tasks. One challenge of this function is that it works only from left to right, meaning the unique identifier you use to find related values has to be placed to the left of your desired value in whatever list or database you’re using.
XLOOKUP: The left-to-right limitation of VLOOKUP is one reason Excel released an updated function, XLOOKUP, which offers one important benefit over its predecessor: Searches can be conducted from any starting point in a database, moving in any direction to find the desired value. XLOOKUP also defaults to searching for an exact match, rather than the approximate match sought by VLOOKUP, which may not always be preferable, depending on the type of values being sought. Still, XLOOKUP generally offers more benefits to users – but because it’s a relatively new function, many professionals might not be familiar with it.
Pivot tables: Pivot tables are one of the more complex functions available through Excel, but they are a valuable tool when dealing with large data sets – which is likely the case at an enterprise organisation. Pivot tables allow you to summarise data and even generate visual graphics based on the trends featured in the data. (A great tutorial on setting up pivot tables can be found here.)

If you haven’t brushed up on Excel’s functions lately, it might be time to revisit them and find out what you’re missing out on. Because the list of available functions has grown over time, there might be valuable new functions available to improve your use of the software.

3. Take advantage of Excel’s automation capabilities
Excel offers the functionality to enact simple automation for various tasks within the software. This is accomplished by creating custom logic within macros, which are essentially structured tasks that you can configure for processes you plan to repeat over time.

Macros aren’t equipped with artificial intelligence or other tools to enable robust automation for time-intensive processes, but they do make it possible to automate simple, predictable processes without having to write any code. That’s a huge benefit for finance professionals, who can use Excel to improve their own individual capabilities, reduce errors, and quickly build new solutions for basic financial tasks over time.

If you need stronger automation capabilities – or you just want to fully realise the benefits of using automation to support your finance team – then you might want to implement a comprehensive financial software suite. But even with that suite in place, Excel can help individual workers create basic automation solutions that make their jobs easier.

4. Use cloud-based data management to support Excel forecasting at scale
Excel is a complex program that’s capable of managing massive data sets and supporting budgeting and forecasting even at a large business. But there can still be issues when it comes to scaling Excel for enterprise businesses and maintaining a single source of truth for your financial data – among other challenges that are unique to large organisations.

One way to overcome Excel’s limitations of scale and workload volume is to connect this software program with a cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, or a suite that can consolidate and centralise financial data for the entire organisation. Instead of functioning as the repository for all this data—and managing the data in all of its complexity – Excel instead uses the cloud-based solution as a resource for acquiring business data and using it for budgeting and forecasting functions.

As a result, Excel’s powerful spreadsheet management and formulaic functions can still be utilised by enterprise organisations. But an ERP or financial suite can do some of the heavy lifting around this financial data, such as maintaining audit trails, organising and saving different versions of files, improving information security, and ensuring that Excel’s functions have the benefit of a single source of truth when running their calculations.

5. Understand when your budgeting and forecasting have outgrown Excel
Many businesses, including enterprise organisations, can continue to find value in Excel even as their companies grow in both size and the complexity of their financial data. If you started out as a small organisation with simple financial data and limited resources, you were probably able to get by using Excel as a stand-alone solution.

Over time, though, you’re likely to experience growing pains related to Excel’s limitations. Even if you have plans to continue using Excel in the future, you might face a crossroads where additional financial solutions are critical to conducting budgeting, forecasting, and other financial activities at the level you require.

Disparate financial data, a lack of a single source of truth, and incomplete financial statements are just some of the scenarios in which Excel’s limitations can become more glaring. Similarly, you may want your financial data to drive better strategic decision-making through the use of dynamic modeling, custom reports, advanced analytics, or other insight-driven initiatives that Excel isn’t capable of supporting.

Excel can still offer value to large enterprise organisations in some capacity, but its role in overall budgeting and forecasting may diminish as your company’s size and strategic needs surpass what the software offers.

When you reach that crossroads, seek out a financial software solution like Tidemark, which uses cloud-based computing, advanced automation, and other enterprise-focused financial tools to integrate Excel into a state-of-the-art system for efficient financial management.

Curious about how Tidemark upgrades your Excel approach and improves financial operations? Request a demo today.

…

Making Financial Planning a continuous and popular activity

Jennene Kelly — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 23:18:07 +0000

Living through periods of rapid upheaval and uncertainty, like the recent pandemic, forces us to adapt quickly to new working practices. One of the long-lasting lessons learned from COVID-19 is that the old way of planning doesn’t work anymore. Organisations now recognise the importance of being able to plan more frequently and integrate planning across business areas beyond finance to enable quick action in the face of rapidly changing market conditions. That’s why Gartner tells us that by 2024, 70 percent of new financial planning and analysis projects will become extended planning and analysis (xP&A) projects – where multiple inputs from across the organisation become the levers finance teams can use to make the right strategic planning decisions.

Incremental planning will give you the edge to be able to nimbly pivot when unexpected conditions arise.

Forward-looking enterprises that are achieving better outcomes have already quickly reworked forecasts on supply chains, materials, and costs. Even further, they’ve pivoted to better manage fluctuating conditions in this new environment for their workforce. These organisations were fast to catch on: they learned that consistently incorporating input from a wide range of departments invites professionals from all levels to share feedback, own their numbers, and feel a sense of commitment in shaping and fulfilling strategic objectives. It takes a modern, flexible approach like this that engages participants at all edges of an organisations through continuous planning, driver-based planning, and collaborative planning to achieve superior results.

Extended Planning and Analysis (xP&A) on demand
Teamwork, no matter how beneficial it is, tends to be pushed aside when the coordination itself gets in the way. We believe this frustration is the root of all silos across the corporate world, severely diminishing capacities to effectively plan as a whole. In fact, although each department may be on top of its own data and plans, the silo it operates within is woefully incompatible with other departments located just down the hall.

For example, imagine that you work at a large multinational with mining, manufacturing, and commercial divisions. Wouldn’t it be great if you could trace how disruptions to your mining operations will reverberate throughout your whole supply chain, affect costs, and help you proactively determine the next steps to take with every impacted entity? This is exactly what those savvy companies are already doing.

When you think about the considerations that go into planning, it becomes clear that having the ability to see all the relevant details whenever you want makes for an accurate and valuable picture to work from. How many times have you had to wait for the operations team to supply the data needed to complete a forecast? This is the type of situation that makes it nearly impossible to do the rapid, scenario-based planning needed to nimbly change direction while facing uncertain conditions.

Making xP&A planning smarter
If you assess multiple entities with differing cost structures, you know how difficult and time-consuming it is to gain access to the right data and then analyse it at a granular level. One area that often goes overlooked is the value that can be achieved from the application of consolidated KPIs to measure major indicators. Imagine having real-time indicators consolidated across sales, marketing, operations, and HR – in addition to metrics on recent acquisitions and overall market trends. By incorporating that intelligence within the context of your assets and liabilities all into one place, you can immediately see and address trends that could boost or derail profits and costs.

Navigating your transition to xP&A
A major goal and requirement in adopting xP&A is to bring people at the edges of an organisation into the planning process, which ultimately drives more accurate forecasts and greater accountability. As you begin to assess the existing data silos and key teams that need to participate, you will uncover various stress points in your organisation’s systems. Often, the addition of data types, stakeholders, and processes can place a strain on current operations and planning technology. Legacy systems weren’t built to handle the size of data we contend with today. Add to that the additional users and number of planning models you now create. The process of establishing a robust xP&A framework can be dramatically accelerated through implementing the right technology.

Multinational organisations share particularly acute pains associated with processing data across multiple regions, entities, and charts of account. The lack of a centralised data store for both operational and financial planning data creates the risk of issues and errors in reports as teams work to bring everything together in their planning. When forecasting across demand plans, capex plans, and labor plans, there can potentially be different dimensions used by each operational business unit, such as sales teams planning on a customer order basis, or product teams looking at SKUs or raw material. Having a centralised system will make it a lot easier to roll up this data to an account level to drive financial plans.

How modern xP&A solutions help
Modern planning solutions can help with these challenges. They are not only designed to handle the complexity, user numbers, and data volumes required to plan across entire organisations, but also to enable professionals at all levels of the organisation to participate. For this, friendly workflows, intuitive software design, and an overall system that speaks to people’s individual KPIs is one of the best ways to ensure that everyone – from store managers to corporate teams – will remain engaged.

What’s so helpful about implementing a system that embraces people across different departments and entities is that it motivates people to contribute real operational data that reflects current realities instead of outdated and often unrealistic perspectives of what’s happened. Operational data is critical for the driver-based modeling component of xP&A, which, in turn, rolls up into the financial plans to create more accurate planning and forecasting. This makes it simple for everyone to get information, answer questions, collaborate, and participate in the decision-making process. This also reinforces a positive feedback loop that ensures ongoing monitoring and engagement. Each loop through the planning cycle solidifies everyone’s commitment and makes the process easier and easier.

Be ready for any situation
When you have a robust plan based on accurate data that have been sourced from your frontline workers, then you are in a strong position to start asking those all-important ‘what-if’ questions. In uncertain times, the ability to test different hypotheses and prepare for a range of potential outcomes can be a huge competitive advantage. When you have the ability to perform unlimited scenario planning and apply predictive and in-process analytics in a flexible and intuitive modeling environment, you immediately position your business so you’re ready to take action, whatever the future throws at you.

Addressing long-lasting changes
The effects of COVID-19 will be felt for years to come as economies slowly rebound and return to normal. With this come many long-lasting changes that will fuel the need for frequent and flexible forecasting and planning efforts. It is unlikely that the pace of business forecasting will ever slow back down to pre-COVID rates.

Now is the time to take charge of identifying and addressing previously unseen opportunities and risks by breaking down information silos to perform continuous, dynamic, and extended planning. By engaging more teams outside finance in the planning process, you can ensure that operational needs are balanced with financial goals. And, most importantly, incremental planning will give you the edge to be able to nimbly pivot when unexpected conditions arise.

Download the whitepaper: Why Extended Planning and Analysis is a Necessity for Every Organisation.

…

Jet boost for Beef + Lamb finance

Jennene Kelly — Sun, 27 Aug 2017 21:46:24 +0000

Published on the 28/08/2017 | Written by insightsoftware

AT A GLANCE

Beef + Lamb New Zealand Limited

INDUSTRY

Agriculture

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

Accelerated reporting
Elimination of manual tasks and spreadsheets
Consistent, accurate delivery of information to managers and directors
Eased compliance with statutory obligations.

SOLUTION

Jet Reports

BUSINESS BENEFITS

Rapid results from implementation
Substantial cost reductions
Flexible, wide ranging reports
Simplified, rapid reporting capability.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

insightsoftware
W: insightsoftware
E: aunz@insightsoftware.com
AU: +61 300 662 649
NZ: +64 4 473 7137

For any business, accurate financial reporting provides the basis on which to make decisions and track performance over time…

It can also present a considerable headache for busy accounting staff, which is why Beef + Lamb New Zealand has welcomed the automation capabilities of Jet Reports into its organisation. With this software, it has reduced what were once almost continuous tasks down to a matter of hours and even minutes.

Beef + Lamb New Zealand Ltd (BLNZ) is the farmer-owned industry organisation representing New Zealand’s sheep and beef farmers. It invests farmer levies in programmes to grow the sheep and beef industry to provide sustainable returns now and for future generations. With the key programmes of Farm, Market, People and Information, the organisation delivers innovative tools and services to help make informed decisions on the farm, maintain market access and open new opportunities for farmers and improve the farming systems of New Zealand’s sheep and beef sector.

Situation
Julie Muller, finance manager at BLNZ, says Jet Reports is used for all monthly reporting to company managers, of which there are around 30 individuals. “They are provided with reports with forecasts, statutory and board reports, so it is quite extensive, and we use Jet Reports to do payment registers, fixed asset registers and more. We pretty much rely on it to do everything.”

Prior to Jet Reports, explained Muller, the large amount of reporting performed by the finance team was largely done manually. “Around three years ago, we were spending days and days on the reporting every month. It would require exporting data from the financial management system, loading it into Excel, formatting it then running macros. If something changed in the general ledger, you’d have to do that whole process again.”

It was, she confirms, a tedious way to spend time; what’s more, as is the case with manual processes, it was error prone. “The monthly reporting cycle was taking ages and it should not be the be all and end all of the accounting team’s work. In some months, the cycle was stretching all the way to the 19^th day; you’d finish only to have to start all over again.”

Solution
The company realised there had to be a better way, so it tested the market. Muller says it received two recommendations from the provider of its financial management solution. “We have quite specific requirements and we were adamant that the selected solution should do just what we wanted.”

And that, she explains, was software which would make the process easier and faster, without further complicating the situation. “In our view, that meant doing nothing more than importing the budgets then getting real time updates.”

One of the solutions put forward was Jet Reports – and Muller says the company realised it was on to a winner. “We had a look and, honestly, it is the best thing we ever did.”

Results
What sparked this response from Muller is the flexibility and performance of Jet Reports, as she goes on to explain. “When we went to Dynamics NAV, some reports could only be produced by Developers, driving up the cost substantially. For example, standard NAV at the time didn’t have depreciation reports available that were necessary for audit purposes nor tax purposes. With Jet Reports, it does it all, including that report which once cost so much money. You don’t need to pay anything further to get any and all the reports you need. You can pull what you want into the report, analyse and get the information you want, presented in the way required.”

If that sounds advantageous, just how long does it take to get the solution in place? “It’s pretty quick; a couple of weeks, including training. Our requirements are quite complex and while we could get stuck in and write basic reports ourselves, we did need assistance from the local representative to get the more detailed reports designed.”

Thanks to Jet Reports, Muller says her team has a lot more time available to focus on the many other tasks which occupy a finance department. “We’ve been freed from sitting there and trying to get information out of the finance system. It’s really good.”

In fact, so much additional time is available that her team has taken on the accounting for three other companies while reducing headcount by two people. “I’d say we need 30 to 40 percent less time to get our work done all thanks to The Analytics Company. Fixed assets, for example, used to take half a day – now Jet Reports does that automatically. That’s amazing. I’d say its paid for itself within a year. I don’t say this lightly, but I would thoroughly recommend it.”

About This Vendor

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The post Jet boost for Beef + Lamb finance appeared first on iStart leading the way to smarter technology investment..

Whitepaper: The big secret to painless data migration

Jennene Kelly — Fri, 21 Oct 2016 20:16:38 +0000

The world is a dynamic place. Businesses change, companies merge, and technologies shift while applications come and go. Change is constant, so the ability to manage change is always in demand.

When we are talking about Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)systems, change is more prominent than ever.

Organisations change their ERP systems in search of efficiencies to be gained from a new data structure, a new set of software tools, and hopefully the better integrated processes these systems are designed to support. The catch is, ERP data itself is often less dynamic than the environment it lives in. All those facts, events and transactions, happily living in their legacy format, won’t automatically snap right into thenew format.

Legacy data is valuable – it might even represent the very lifeblood of the company itself. Important as it is, legacy data can sometimes get ignored, until it rears up ‘Fatal Attraction’ style and demands attention. Data migration is one of the last steps before the production phase of a new ERP implementation. The main focus up to this point is placed on choosing, planning for and customizing the various ERP modules to be deployed.

The actual data the ERP was designed to house sometimes receives scant attention until go-live is imminent and time becomes a scarce commodity.

This situation is tragic because legacy data is a key component to the success of a new ERP implementation.

When users can access old data in a new ERP with its new screens, new commands and new processes, it understandably proves to them that the newERP is ‘working’. Welcome to the black art of data migration.

Top tips for dealing with legacy data

Regardless of the timeline for doing so – earlier is better – decisions and trade-offs must be made about the historical data. These generally bubble up out of a collection of seemingly innocent questions that invite emotional responses and have far reaching implications.

What is going to be migrated, and what is going to be left behind?
How should we clean the old data?
How should we restructure it?
How much history do we need?

To find out more please download our free Whitepaper: The big secret to painless data migration

Jet-powered: The data-driven motor company

Jennene Kelly — Sun, 10 Jul 2016 23:39:26 +0000

Published on the 11/07/2016 | Written by insightsoftware

AT A GLANCE

European Motor Distributors

INDUSTRY

Automotive

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

Improved access to accurate real-time data
Elimination of manual tasks and spreadsheets
Consistent, company-wide information
Improved information required to support efficient workflows.

SOLUTION

Jet Reports

BUSINESS BENEFITS

Rapid results from implementation
Data access driving improved decision making
Self-service access to BI
Simplified, rapid reporting capability.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

insightsoftware
W: insightsoftware
E: aunz@insightsoftware.com
AU: +61 300 662 649
NZ: +64 4 473 7137

European Motor Distributors implements Jet Enterprise for operational intelligence…

As an increasingly information-driven business, European Motor Distributors turned up the focus on its use of Jet Reports, improving information accessibility for better decision-making across all four of its business units. As a result, today it benefits from a true operational intelligence solution, which draws data from across the full value chain, to provide actionable insights that can rapidly influence business direction.

European Motor Distributors (EMD) holds the national import and distribution rights of Audi, Volkswagen, Porsche and Skoda. As a collective of national brands, EMD is the custodian of bringing these brands into New Zealand, engaging and aligning the vehicles with their target markets and communicating the points of difference. Its activities include product planning and pricing, sales, service, parts and marketing. EMD is a Giltrap Group company.

Situation
Matt Tohill, EMD’s GM of IT & Digital, provides a brief insight into the company’s IT landscape: “We use Incadea, an automotive industry vertical solution, built on top of Microsoft Dynamics NAV and CRM; we integrate all the way through to the factory systems of the manufacturers in Europe, and we integrate forwards with our retailers across the country. We have Flow Software [middlware] sitting in between for the data integration between these systems; there is a lot of back and forth with our product master data across the whole value chain as we keep an eye on a lot of metrics such as pricing, parts and costs, sales analysis and more.”

It may not occur to the man on the street, but the vehicle business is, like a lot of other industries in the modern era, highly data-driven. “Understanding that data effectively is challenging; more than that, it is important that we understand the end customer and what products they are buying, how often they are serviced, their satisfaction. We need to tie that together and offer insights to the business on what products to offer, so it can get the right vehicle in front of the right customer at the right time. You want to make sure the customer’s experience is a good one from when they first think about a vehicle, to when they talk to the dealerships.”

Tohill says the challenge is to join the dots and present the data to the business in a meaningful way. “We’d started by using Jet Reports package, which was very successful – but, there were some limitations, including that it took data directly off the ERP systems and that meant performance limitations; it could put out reports, but these were static and not very user friendly.”

Solution
With the initial usage of Jet Reports demonstrating the promise of the reporting solution in its business, Tohill says EMD didn’t hesitate to step things up by implementing Jet Reports, the fully-featured solution which incorporates a data warehouse.

“Because Jet Reports offers a standard data warehouse for the NAV environment, that means cubes out of box and an implementation which was really cost effective. By creating a separate data repository outside of core platforms, and allowing for the combination of multiple internal and external data sources with our ERP and CRM, and using Excel as the presentation layer, Jet Reports proved ideal.”

Excel, says Tohill, is a solution that the business is comfortable with. “That meant from a change management perspective, things were easy – and Excel is a powerful tool for data analysis.”

Results
Having used Jet Reports for over 18 months, Tohill confirms that EMD has had ample opportunity to put it through its paces. Notably, he says getting it up and running for the first time, and delivering actionable intelligence, took just a matter of weeks. “It’s not a big, Tier-1 solution; it requires some infrastructure, but you can flick that up pretty quickly these days and the client install is straightforward. Being so closely tied to Dynamics meant that within a few hours of completing the implementation, it produced a few standard cubes that were immediately useable and from which we started to build a suite of reports.”

He agrees that there is nothing more satisfying than seeing immediate results from an investment. “Absolutely, that’s what you want. Within hours we were running pivots across cubes from a number of data sources.”

This approach, Tohill continues, meant it was possible to get to grips with Jet Reports while establishing how to get the best value from it. “We built and presented those reports to the business to demonstrate what was possible and to start driving demand within the business for those insights. Once we whet the appetite, the business started to demand more.”

Subsequently, the company employed a BI specialist to drive the performance and value of the data in its information systems, ably supported by Jet Reports. “As a result, we’ve got consistency of measures and reporting across the four business units. We have more reports which are easily produced; key performance indicators are made available to all – and that helps focus people – and we’ve had numerous examples where decisions are made on the basis of reports from Jet Reports. Where the supporting reports might once have taken two weeks or more, we get it in half an hour.”

There is a ‘self-service’ component, too, with managers able to access information around the clock using mobile devices to access a portal which has dashboards of relevant information. “Jet Reports is a solution that the business is comfortable with. The information it presents is consistently valuable, has a real impact on business direction and, because it updates from our core systems every half hour, it keeps an accurate finger on the pulse of the company,” Tohill concludes.

About This Vendor

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Revenue boost for wholesale distributor Kinsey’s Archery

Jennene Kelly — Tue, 05 Aug 2014 23:02:18 +0000

Published on the 06/08/2014 | Written by insightsoftware

AT A GLANCE

Kinsey’s Archery

INDUSTRY

Sports & Recreation
Distribution

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

Obtain better data reports in a timely manner

SOLUTION

Jet Reports

THE BENEFITS

Superior access to information improves agility in all departments
Easy to read reports
Business has grown as a result

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A wholesale distributor of hunting and fishing equipment, Kinsey’s Archery has served thousands of customers for over 50 years…

With a revenue growth of 32 percent since implementing Jet Reports, this seasoned company is fully leveraging their business data to capture new growth. Systems Administrator Mat Ealy shares how Kinsey’s Archery fully implemented Jet Reports in just two weeks, laying a robust framework for future company success.

Kinsey’s Archery Products, Inc. is a leading wholesale distributor of archery equipment and outdoor-related products headquartered in Mount Joy, PA. With over 13,000 inventory items, 100 employees, 50-plus years in business and over $50 million in revenue, Kinsey’s Archery has provided top-notch service and attention to thousands of customers around the world.

After purchasing a Microsoft Dynamics TM NAV system a couple of years ago, the technical team at Kinsey’s Archery couldn’t find an easy way to report on the many key performance indicators (KPIs) the company needed to track. To help improve on Microsoft Dynamic’s stock reporting functionality, Kinsey’s Archery implemented the reporting solution from Jet Reports. While Jet Reports successfully met their reporting needs, they found they wanted to dive even deeper into analytics and soon upgraded to Jet Global’s robust and easy-to-use Business Intelligence solution.

The Challenge
High demand for report queries taxed the company’s IT team and slowed down business
Although the company was benefitting from the additional reporting capabilities of Jet Reports, some of the more data-intensive reports required custom queries from a SQL production database, which turned out to be a very lengthy exercise. With just two employees in the IT department and more report requests than they could handle, it became apparent that to get better data insights in a timely manner, something else was needed. Before Jet Enterprise, the IT staff was not able to write all of the reports that business users needed, and internal requests for reports didn’t always communicate the right information, further slowing development time, according to Kinsey’ systems administrator Mat Ealy. At one point, the IT department was spending 20 hours per week writing reports in Jet Essentials and SQL, a tall order for their two-person team.

The Solution
Empower business users to write their own reports and free up IT resources with Jet Reports
After learning about Jet Reports, the Business Intelligence solution from Jet Global, Kinsey’s Archery decided to upgrade. With the help of their Microsoft Dynamics partner, iCepts, Kinsey’s has empowered business users to write their own reports and freed up IT’s time to pursue strategic initiatives. They also realised the data warehouse and cubes in Jet Global would equate to improved reporting and server performance.

“Before Business Intelligence, there was no way for employees to react in any actionable timeframe. Now with Jet Enterprise, they can react very quickly,” said Ealy.

Upon making the decision to upgrade, Kinsey’s Archery installed Jet Reports in just two hours and had the sales team writing reports over the next two weeks.

“Our technical team attended a webinar on the Jet Analytics and a second webinar on report writing from Jet Reports,” said Ealy. “We gave our sales department a 30-minute training session in week two of implementation, and we had them writing their own reports.”

The Results
Superior access to information improves agility in all departments
Since implementing Jet Global, the company has seen significant revenue growth and employees have fully embraced the new system.

“Before BI, it was ‘I think, I feel, I believe,’” said Ealy. “Now we have the data to show what is actually going on. We can quickly increase the buying when we spot a trend or slow down when we see a decrease.”

Now that business users are actively engaged, the IT staff spends just 2 hours per quarter writing reports, a dramatic freeing of resources. Before Jet Reports, the company had been using 127 SQL reports. Today, Kinsey’s Archery is using just four SQL reports because Jet Enterprise has been able to replace the rest.

“With Jet Reports, we were able to make reports self-service so our non-technical people could get the reports they wanted without tying up our IT staff,” said Ealy. “Jet Reports created a self-service portal for ad hoc reporting, as well as allowing us to build really nice detailed sales presentations for our outside salespeople.”

Kinsey’s sales department is now using Jet Enterprise for metrics tracking and sharing KPIs with large corporate clients, and that is not the only department reaping the benefits. Marketing is using Jet Reports to explore regional buying trends, and HR is collecting and sharing metrics company-wide.

Company revenue grows 32 percent
Since implementing Jet Enterprise, the company has seen revenue growth of over 32 percent.

“For a company that has been around this long and is this established, to see that kind of year-over-year growth is pretty big,” commented Ealy. “We have experienced this tremendous revenue growth and I think Jet Enterprise is part of the reason why.”

He continues, “I think more people should use your product. When other companies that are using Microsoft Dynamics NAV as us what we are doing, we suggest getting Jet Reports up and running. We drive people to something that has helped us grow and has brought us success.”

We have experienced this tremendous revenue growth and I think Jet Enterprise is part of the reason why. – Mat Ealy Kinsey’s Archery

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UK cider house achieves real-time sales analysis

Jennene Kelly — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 22:44:25 +0000

Published on the 01/08/2014 | Written by insightsoftware

AT A GLANCE

Weston Cider

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

Extend reporting from Dynamics NAV
Provide flexible reporting tools

SOLUTION

Jet Reports

THE BENEFITS

Instant and automated emailing of report
Customer profitability analysis and insights
Analytical capabilities give much needed insight into profitability

FOR MORE INFORMATION

insightsoftware
W: insightsoftware
E: aunz@insightsoftware.com
AU: +61 300 662 649
NZ: +64 4 473 7137

Westons Cider, an award-winning cider producer based in Herefordshire, England, was searching for reporting flexibility and in-depth profitability analysis for their growing business…

Walk into any pub in England and you’ll likely be offered Stowford Press, a premium cider brand produced by Westons Cider. With 220 employees and an expanding international presence, the company is growing market share each year. To support their growth, Westons Cider wanted to take a step forward to run the business more efficiently.

Back in 2010, the company realised the need to upgrade their infrastructure to meet market demands. They replaced their antiquated MS-DOS financial system that printed paper reports—which were mailed to each salesperson by hand — with Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

Getting the data they needed out of the new system was still a challenge, however. Soon after upgrading to Dynamics NAV, it was clear to Westons Cider that the system’s out-of-the-box reporting was not going to meet the needs of the company. They began a search for complementary solutions that could provide the insight they required.

“We wanted more flexibility. The NAV reports are very inflexible because mostly they are meant to be printed out; it can be challenging putting it into Excel to analyse the results,” said Paddy Smith, company accountant for Westons Cider.

A solution brewing
In order to further increase flexibility, Westons went also looking for a reporting system that would automatically send critical business reports to managers and employees who rely on up-to-the minute data.

With the help of worldwide software partner The NAV People, Jet Reports was selected as the best solution for the size and scope of Westons reporting goals. After a quick implementation, the company was saving time on daily reports and giving salespeople visibility into the information they needed.

“We use the Jet Reports scheduler a huge amount. Every night we send out 20 reports to 30 different people using the batch scheduler. That saves a huge amount of time. Also, the sales force can get the information quickly without having to wait until month-end,” said Smith.

While Jet Reports reporting worked well for Westons, they were looking for more insight into their data. The company considered options and made a decision to upgrade to Jet Enterprise from Jet Reports. This allowed them to continue to get the operational reports they were relying on, with additional analytics to spot trends in their business.

“Not only are you saving time but you’re actually giving users a lot more information with the new system. Certainly we’re now saving a day of somebody’s time just to do those reports. It’s also that each individual user saves time because they get the information they require right at their fingertips,” said Smith.

Sales cubed
Instant reporting and analytical capabilities give much needed insight into profitability.

Westons Cider started with a roll out of Jet Enterprise to the sales team. With a pre-built sales cube out-of-the-box, Jet Enterprise allows Westons to drill down into KPIs and financial details for more visibility into their profitability.

Instead of paper reports in the mail, salespeople not only have instant reporting capabilities but can now analyze customer profitability to optimize their sales routes. With Jet Enterprise, they can quickly reconfigure their sales data in many different ways using Microsoft Excel.

“Now we’re really drilling down into the profitability of the customers. With the NAV Dimensions and with Jet Enterprise, we’re now able to create a report with six different PivotTables, which gives the profitability of the customer as well, bringing in all of the marketing spend and all the support spend with the advertising and promotional discounts,” said Smith.

“They’re seeing how their customers perform against their budgets.”

Seeing the results of Jet Reports in sales, Westons Cider quickly gathered support for expanding it throughout the company. The company is currently working on repeating the success of their sales team in the rest of their operations.

“We’d like to push it out further, especially into production,” says Smith. “The biggest area we’re looking at is identifying where waste is occurring, and then trying to stop that from happening.”

With the recent announcement of Jet Hub from The Analytics Company, Smith also sees a potential advantage of on-the-go dashboards for a very mobile sales force.

“We’ve been talking about mobile. I’ll be very keen to look at that to help salespeople get information on the move quicker and more easily,” says Smith.

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Amnesty International embraces jet propelled reports

Jennene Kelly — Sun, 08 Jun 2014 04:39:28 +0000

Published on the 08/06/2014 | Written by insightsoftware

AT A GLANCE

Amnesty International

INDUSTRY

Not for profit

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

Update their reporting system
Find software to deliver long-term value

SOLUTION

Jet Reports

THE BENEFITS

Time saver during yearly budget process
Flexibility
Quick and easy to use

FOR MORE INFORMATION

insightsoftware
W: insightsoftware
E: aunz@insightsoftware.com
AU: +61 300 662 649
NZ: +64 4 473 7137

Amnesty International was dealing with an outdated reporting system and needed to upgrade but the results went far beyond simple reporting…

Darren Rifat, systems & reporting manager for Amnesty International, UK Section said that although the organisation was in its comfort zone having worked with the Microsoft Dynamics GP and legacy reporting system combination for over 10 years, the reporting system was nearing the end of its lifecycle. The search was on for something better and the challenge was to find a software replacement that would deliver long-term value for the global organisation. What it wasn’t expecting was that the new solution would save weeks of work during the yearly budgeting process.

The search for more productive reporting
“We set ourselves a target, to get some information on different products over three months and we consulted with our software supplier to ask them about the different products on the market,” said Rifat. Microsoft partner m-hance helped Amnesty International’s UK Section find the right solution primarily because they had such a deep understanding of the group’s complex business processes. Rifat said this knowledge and expertise led to a wholehearted recommendation of The Analytics Company because of the flexibility it brought to the table.

“We moved to The Analytics Company, having looked on the market for other things. We wanted something that would help us be more flexible, which Jet Reports enabled us to do. We looked at things like Qlikview, IBM Cognos, and they just didn’t suit our purpose.” Rifat said.

During a trial period, Rifat gathered experienced team members to test the software by running versions of the organisation’s old reports through the new Jet Reports system. What he heard was great news. They immediately understood the value of Jet Reports because they knew how complicated it had been to create these reports with the legacy system.

“I would bring up their report, run it in Jet Reports and they told me, ‘yes, that is so much quicker, it’s easier,’” Rifat said.

“We moved to The Analytics Company, having looked on the market for other things. We wanted something that would help us be more flexible, which Jet Reports enabled us to do.”

Game-changing benefits
After implementing Jet Essentials, Rifat’s team has been able to recognise key features that have helped them simplify reporting. In addition to the time savings from using Jet Essentials, Rifat points out another key advantage of the Excel-based interface – standardisation.

“The biggest one is Excel formatting. We can set up the report in a standard format and the way that we use Jet, it will insert lines, rows and columns and the format will remain the same, which is a big one for me,” Rifat said.

One of the more resource-intensive reporting processes at the Amnesty International UK Section was the budgeting process. By using the features in Jet Essentials, budgeting templates which used to take two weeks to create now take a few hours.

“When we set things up, we get it to look at a master document using Excel formulas. When it creates all these sheets, it tells you the department, the department name, the project, the project name, the budget holder, the authorisation limits, etc. – it just does it all for us. Just click a button and away it goes, I can set up the templates in a couple of hours,” said Rifat.

Extend your Microsoft Dynamics ERP system
Organisations carefully select and implement ERP systems to store and organise their data. It’s equally important to choose the right reporting solution to output that data in a meaningful way. Not only did Amnesty International’s UK Section found that Jet Reports brought their reporting to a new level, but it had the added benefit of saving time during the busy budgeting period.

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Fly Buys jets in its financial reports in style

Jennene Kelly — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:28:32 +0000

Published on the 01/10/2009 | Written by insightsoftware

AT A GLANCE

Loyalty New Zealand – Fly Buys

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

Streamline financial reporting

SOLUTION

Jet Reports

THE BENEFITS

Saving of ¾ a day on preparing monthly reports
Ease of use
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics NAV general ledger
Investigating automated scheduling and distribution of reports

FOR MORE INFORMATION

insightsoftware
W: insightsoftware
E: aunz@insightsoftware.com
AU: +61 300 662 649
NZ: +64 4 473 7137

When financial reporting at Fly Buys operator Loyalty New Zealand outgrew its spreadsheet it needed to be replaced – and Jet Reports provided the answer – and the payback…

Jet Reports, an Excel-based report writing tool, has taken a “huge amount of time” out of monthly reporting requirements, says Loyalty New Zealand financial controller Stephen Bayley.

Loyalty New Zealand operates the hugely successful Fly Buys loyalty scheme on behalf of its owners, the Bank of New Zealand, Foodstuffs, Shell and IAG.

Launched in 1996, Fly Buys is the largest and most comprehensive coalition loyalty programme in New Zealand.

Its comprises more than 1.3 million active households which represents over 70 percent penetration of New Zealand households.

Members collect points from more than 40 retail companies. Between them, these participants have more than 3000 outlets and cover most day to day shopping categories.

These companies are all leading players in their respective categories. Fly Buys card holders have redeemed nearly $500,000 worth of rewards this year.

In 2007, Loyalty NZ had installed the Microsoft Dynamics Nav enterprise resource planning system, using Microsoft specialist Intergen. “The Dynamics reporting wasn’t great,” Bayley says. “In Australia, Nav comes with Jet Reports packaged in.”

“We’d reached the point where we needed something other than Excel,” Bayley says.

“One of our suppliers was using Jet Reports, so we googled it and I sent a note to Tim Turner, who distributes it. He used to work with my chief financial officer.”

Turner formed Jet Reports Australia and New Zealand Ltd three years ago having purchased the report writer two years previously as a customer. He distributes the software and provides consulting services on behalf of the US manufacturer, Jet Reports International, which used to be a Microsoft Dynamics solutions centre and developed the report writer based on customer requirements. It was commercialised and first released to market in 2002 after five years development work.

Bayley is extravagant in his praise for Jet Reports, which he says is “fantastic”.

“It’s saved us three-quarters of a day. There was a wee bit of a set up, which Tim and I did.” Both are chartered accountants.

Excel has a number of tabs, each with different functionality.

Jet Reports is just another tab. “You press the tab and it runs,” Bayley says.

“It was cheap to buy, quick to install, and you get a real bang for your buck.” He used Jet Reports for monthly reporting and then again at the end of the financial year.

“It was cheap to buy, quick to install, and you get a real bang for your buck”
Stephen Bayley, Loyalty NZ Financial Controller

At the time of interview, Bayley was looking forward to implementing the scheduler module in Jet Reports.

“I want to set up the scheduler so that when I am away it will run all reports automatically. That means no downtime for me.”

He is keen to understand where Jet Reports will go with future versions and to take advantage of the local distributor’s expertise.

Loyalty NZ runs SQL and Oracle databases, the latter for its data warehouse. It currently runs its key performance indicators on spreadsheets but Bayley says it will possibly automate those.

“We can streamline a few things, subject to consulting with Tim. For example, we might look at the monthly points issuance per retailer.”

The company is currently engaged in a project with SAS to reconfigure its data warehouse to increase the capacity. That should be completed within a few months. Loyalty New Zealand employs an information technology team of around 20 people.

Bayley says Jet Reports cost around $10,000 to get it installed and for a initial set of reports. “It saves me a hell of a lot of time.

“If anyone is running a general ledger, they should definitely get Jet Reports.”

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Jet Reports slays the monster at Faber

Jennene Kelly — Wed, 16 May 2007 21:47:29 +0000

Published on the 17/05/2007 | Written by insightsoftware

FOR MORE INFORMATION

insightsoftware
W: insightsoftware
E: aunz@insightsoftware.com
AU: +61 300 662 649
NZ: +64 4 473 7137

At window blinds manufacturer Faber a complex report they called ‘The Monster’ took the IT manager hours to generate. Now the process takes only a few minutes…

The monster
Renato Nappo, the IT manager for Faber Blinds, gave a nickname to the first major report he ran: The Monster.

His managers wanted the report to provide numerous details such as how much of each of the company’s products was sold by subgroup, and the value of each subgroup within each model by month. And Nappo needed to take that main report and split it by client and group of blinds. No wonder he called it The Monster.

“The first report I did, I was learning as I went along,” he says. “Totaling up the quantity took me a day and a half, and then I replicated it for other models.”

While the finance, accounting, sales and managing directors were tapping their feet, impatient for results, Nappo had to build his reports in stages, bringing 5,000 to 10,000 records out of Object Designer into Excel, and then filtering them from there.

Slow and difficult was the norm
Faber Blinds had used Navision since 1997, but Nappo says the Navision Reports were “very basic, not user friendly, and the cost was prohibitive to get them the way we wanted them.”

Nappo and his colleagues felt they had no choice but to employ a slow, error-prone, meticulous copy-and-paste process. “The manual method had been the accepted norm since a requirement for the report had been identified,” he says.

The copy-and-paste method – which took many hours and even days – led to mistakes because it was so manually intensive.

Jet provides immediate results
As soon as Faber Blinds acquired Jet Reports, The Monster was slayed. Reports that took eight hours now take four minutes with Jet.

“The rewards are tremendous,” says Nappo. “Jet is a great tool that promises a lot of efficiencies to improve business.”

Jet saves time, reduces errors and answers questions the company couldn’t address using the old method.

“We are instantly keeping tabs on quantity and keeping tabs on progress on a sales or marketing promotion,” Nappo says.

“We can answer questions like: ‘What increase in amount of product is needed based on the sales?’”

Jet empowers employees
One problem with a cumbersome report process is that few employees learn how to create the reports. Because Jet is so easy, many Faber Blinds employees quickly learned to answer questions and produce new information with Jet Reports.

Nappo liked the idea of teaching others to use Jet Reports. “I want more time to work on other things, plus I like the idea of empowering people,” he says. “It’s better for the business.”

Employees in the finance department enjoy stretching their capabilities and improving efficiency in their roles by learning and using Jet. Nappo says employees now “take a greater part in the business. Jet gives them that capability.”

Even IT likes Jet
Like many IT managers, Nappo is a one-man band at Faber Blinds. “I have 50 users and the phone rings off the hook constantly to support them,” he says.

He also juggles network infrastructure and Navision database administration in-house. The job is hard work, and getting it all done on-time and without errors isn’t easy — which made the switch to Jet Reports a dream come true.

About This Vendor

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