Far too often, a company's financial reporting is limited to a set of financial statements and if more than the basic financial statements are provided in a financial reporting package, the supplementary data is often prepared manually in Word or Excel.

A good financial reporting package should ideally consist of a variety of financial statements as welll as meaningful supplementary data.  Some additional data elements that are meaningful to a business decision maker are:

• Top X customers
• Top X items
• Sales Trends
• Job Profitability
• Etc.

One of the more interesting aspects of the new social web is blogging.  Now that we have decided to join the party, one of the first things I was tasked with was coming up with a URL for our blog.  Our consultants recommended using something like blog.accountingmicro.com or info.accountingmicro.com.  Howerver I just couldn't do that as it made it sound like this was going to be one more cookie cutter blog.  That we were going to go through the motions of adding a blog to our site just like everyone else hopping on the social marketing bandwagon.

To the contrary.  In thinking about it, I actually saw this as a great opportunity for I and my staff to finally have a forum to share all of the great information and ideas that we share among ourselves.  I feel that what we have to share is exciting, current and useful and as such needs to be conveyed from a forum much more exciting than something called a blog. 

Hence The Wire.  Anyone who has watched old movies can envision those scenes of the printing presses and the hot stories coming off of the teletype.  These were the hot stories coming to each newspaper, radio station etc, from the AP Wire, also known as the Associated Press.

We are pleased to begin publishing our ideas re ERP, CRM and a host of other IT trends and issues on The Wire.  I and my staff know and appreciate how difficult it is for a business technology buyer to navigate the large and often confusing body of information available from the web and other media.  We hope to help by providing in this blog our knowledge as experienced technology consultants.

As representatives of multiple, competing publishers including Sage Software, SAP, Microsoft, Epicor and others, we are qualified to provide objective assessments meets a businesses needs best. 

We are looking forward to adding interesting content to this blog from our experienced consultants.  Look forward to hearing from our experts in Manufacturing, Distribution, Project Accounting, Nonprofits, and more.

Business Intelligence is an expression that’s being used (and overused) to describe a broad range of applications and technologies for gathering, storing and analyzing data to help business users make better decisions.             

Many businesses focus on Financial Reporting software applications as their primary form of Business Intelligence. With Microsoft discontinuing their development of FRx, there is now a renewed focus on finding a Financial Reporting application that’s the best fit for a companies Financial Reporting requirements.

It’s no longer sufficient for a Financial Reporting solution to produce a compliant Balance Sheet, Income Statement and Statement of Cash Flows.  While these are necessities, there is much more    to consider. 

   Historically companies have prepared and presented formal financial statement monthly.  While this standard practice still has its place for formal reporting,  there is also a need for companies to give serious consideration to reporting much more frequently for informal internal reporting.  Up until now, the relatively infrequent monthly reporting was primarily due to the amount of time and effort it would take to prepare and distribute financial reports, often taking days or even weeks.

Today most business owners realize that they must embrace technology in the work place to remain competitive.  So the question is no longer whether to automate the business, but rather, what is the correct balance of manual and automated processes.

Like investments of other types,  the concept of diminishing returns applies here as well.  There is an optimal point at which additional investment yields additional complexity, maintenance, cost, etc, without a corresponding positive impact to the business's operations.
 One rule of thumb to employ is to think of a technology investment as a lever.  Like a well placed lever, the appropriate technology investment will enable a company to lift a disproportionately heavy load without increasing human capital.  As in the tale of David and Goliath, David was able to slay the giant with innovation.

So how does this philosophy translate into action?

The 4.4 Sage MAS 90 update contains many new features that clients have been requesting for years and have now been included in the basic product feature set as part of Sage’s commitment to delivering innovative solutions to customer’s business needs.

All Sage MAS 90 version 4.4 users currently on maintenance have access to these new tools.  Register here to arrange for this install today!

                                            2011 Form 941

Just didn’t want this to get lost in all the other cool new features of the new Sage MAS 90 release.  Those of you using the payroll module (you know who you are!) will need this for printing form 941 for this year.  California EDD has new requirements for form DE9C which may require an alignment adjustment on your state quarterly return.  Register here if you need help with this.

Expense Distribution Tables  (my favorite!)

Streamline entry of standard Sage MAS 90 AP invoices when you need to regularly allocate expenses across multiple accounts or departments.  The new Expense Distribution Table feature allows you to pre-define your GL account distribution and percentages.

Company-Specific Background Colors

If you regularly work in multiple companies, you may find it frustrating when you get halfway through a journal entry and find out you’re in the wrong company!  Now you can define an easily identifiable background for each of your companies with the new Sage MAS 90 4.4.

When considering CRM applications, one important consideration is the level of integration available between the CRM application and your other line of business applications, particularly your ERP.

The level of integration is extremely important when considering user efficiencies, validity of data, and application maintenance.

When considering CRM applications, terms that you are likely to encounter are Integrated and , less frequently, Embedded.  What is the difference?

Sage began researching an optimum solution for customers as soon as Microsoft® announced a retirement date for FRx®. Sage ERP MAS Intelligence was identified as the ideal FRx alternative product for Sage ERP MAS customers. In addition to offering an alternative solution for FRx customers, F9 customers will also receive MAS Intelligence as part of Sage’s ongoing effort to provide superior products and services.

To help migrate current customers over to MAS Intelligence, Sage offers all customers  with a current maintenance subscription a comparable “trade-in”.  Sage ERP MAS 90 and 200 customers will receive one free Intelligence Report Manager license as a “trade in.” Sage ERP MAS 500 customers will receive four free Report Manager licenses as a “trade in.”  Additional modules and licenses may be  purchased separately.  The entire MAS Intelligence Suite is comprised of the following modules:

1. Report Viewer  - Allows users the ability to view reports and drill-down to existing reports and templates.  Basic edit capabilities such as parameter changes and filtering tools are included.  
2. Report Manager – Allows users to create and edit new reports as well as filter and aggregate data.  Includes ten basic report templates, including a dashboard and several format choices for basic income statements and balance sheets.  This makes getting started with MAS Intelligence a breeze.
3. Report Designer – Expands the functionality of the Report Manager with easy-to-use ‘drag-and-drop’ report creation tools.
4. Connector – This module is used to access data from modules other than the General Ledger, multiple company databases for consolidated reports, and multicurrency translation.

In the short term, customers will have the ability to use both FRx and/or F9 as well as MAS Intelligence. While they have some of the same basic reporting features, there are many advantages of using Intelligence.
So what are the benefits of using Sage MAS Intelligence over other options?

• Basic reporting tools (Report Manager) are included in the product offering from Sage (i.e. no additional cost)
• Cost savings through a quick-to-deploy financial reporting and business intelligence solution. 
• Sage-supported
• Excel –based, leveraging familiarity with this fundamental accountant’s tool.
• Scalability and flexibility in architecture, licensing and pricing.
• Financial reports can be automatically delivered on demand and on time in a presentable format.

To help you further understand the benefits of this great replacement for FRx, Accounting Micro Systems has provided a free white paper for you to download.