Do Finance Departments need a Business Intelligence (BI) Tool?

by | Feb 13, 2013 | Business Intelligence (BI), Learning Center, Ms Excel, Reporting

In today’s fast growing economy, almost every corporation utilizes an Accounting Information System (AIS) to keep track of its accounting activities in conjunction with its IT resources. Maintaining a system that gathers, stores and processes financial and accounting data for decision makers, helps companies to formulate statistical reports. These reports can be used internally by the management to get a better understanding of their business, or externally by investors, creditors and tax authorities.

Traditional accounting software are based on core principles that deliver adequate balance sheets, cash flows, and income statements, but are usually not designed to deliver insights for effective business management. In some cases, firms get trapped down by the amount of time consumed in editing and/or working with static data reported by these systems in Excel spreadsheets. Business Intelligence tools work in a dynamic fashion to offer more actionable information on a firm’s financial information. Thus, real time data is made available instantly with absolutely no time lag.

Having a Business Intelligence solution that is highly compatible with your accounting system, but at the same time is—affordable, easy-to-install and user friendly— removes the limitations of traditional accounting software solutions. Most financial departments extract data and analyze reports in Microsoft Excel or other accounting software therefore having a business intelligence solution that delivers real time data to the same user interface or dashboard makes it easy for users to adapt to. An example of a good business intelligence solution for this purpose is PowerOLAP. It integrates with Excel and other accounting systems to give users the ability to analyze, report, plan and forecast using live data. Accounts receivables, sales orders, purchases, inventory, expenses, and payroll among others can all be reported as it happens with PowerOLAP.

With the right Business Intelligence tool finance departments can save time, discover ways to gain a competitive advantage. Data is turned into knowledge and knowledge into profit.

 

Blog contributed by-

– Shruti Sahu, Project Management – Marketing Associate, PARIS Technologies

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