The GL Company

To overcome these problems companies are turning to Business Intelligence tools to provide summary information. However, there is again a major flaw; the data has to be duplicated to an OLAP database, a newer type of database structure that has been designed specifically to analyze summary information. This transfer is normally run overnight, therefore a journal entry that is entered at 9.00 am on any given day can't be seen until the transfer and calculation of that day's data into the OLAP cube which is run later that night. This means that it can take as long as 24 hours for the journal to show up on a report, often rendering the report obsolete before it is even reviewed. Additionally, Business Intelligence systems are simply not designed to accommodate the requirements of a frantic month end process.

Shadow Data Systems

Finally to address these issues many companies use home grown Excel spreadsheets or Access databases as short term tactical solutions to pull data directly from the ERP system. These tools use scripts, direct links to the ERP database and complex macros to build ad-hoc reports against the data and are often put together by a technically savvy business user. This approach has a great advantage that the end users are already familiar with the applications and a solution can quickly be put in place to meet immediate needs. Spreadsheets and databases of this kind are often only partially documented (if at all) and come with little or no security, data integrity safeguards or version control. Because they lack the strong underlying architecture needed to be reliable in the long term, changes become increasingly difficult and eventually become unmanageable. (See www.ShadowDataSystems.com)

Accounting Intelligence tools combine the best aspects of both Business Intelligence and Shadow Data tools, offering the speed and simplicity of implementation and use, with the security and power of a full scale Business Intelligence solution. In addition, an Accounting Intelligence solution can also check the integrity of an ERP system, ensuring that what you report on is accurate and relevant.

The GL Company is the first company to build an "Accounting Intelligence" system to cater for the month and year end close with the end user in mind. This is a system that has been specifically designed for your finance department and it will change the way you close your month end forever.

There are six key areas that differentiate us from report writers, Business Intelligence tools and Shadow Data Systems which we call "FAVORS".

F

lash Reporting Cycle

This is the hectic period 5 days before and 5 days after the month end close. Business unit managers and accountants want up to the second information at a summary and detail level.

A

ccountants, not developers, drive the system

Our products have been designed so that end users can build their own inquires.

V

irtual OLAP

Our Virtual OLAP engine gives the business the capability of looking at any combination of the dimensions in the ERP system at any level. We can also consolidate and pivot these dimensions just by a simple point and click. There is no need for complex ETL (Extraction Manipulation and Load) software or for the need for a separate database.

O

nline Inquiries and Publishing

All Inquires are online and run very quickly. Customers have built inquires that run in seconds, while the same inquiry takes ERP report writers minutes or hours to run. The end user can easily share these inquiries with other users.

R

eally Real Time®

Our product is truly real time. When you buy a BI solution you have to "stage" or transfer the summary and transactional data into another database. All our inquiries run in truly real time, can drill down and drill across to transactional or other summary data within your production environment database.

S

oxBridge®

The link between IT and the end user. SoxBridge is a central repository where all the report definitions are held and shared around the enterprise. IT can back this up, grant and revoke authority to parts of the system and have complete visibility of who wrote and ran what reports.

With over 300 customers to testify as to how Accounting Intelligence has changed their lives, isn't it time that you took a look at Really Real Time® technology?

So, call in some "FAVORS" and have at look at Accounting Intelligence from The GL Company®