Boost IFS with real-time business intelligence

Data analytics, or business intelligence (BI), is the process of interpreting key business data to understand how an organization is performing, both financially and operationally.

Data analytics software is designed to retrieve, analyze, transform, and report on business data and metrics. This software provides organizations with an integrated view of their overall business by combining multiple data sets, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, CRM, HR, Payroll and e-commerce. BI can also be used to identify trends, uncover insights, and make informed business decisions.

This is the process by which businesses regularly plan, review and control their finances.

The budget is a company's financial plan of intent for 12-months. This will incorporate data from finance, operations, sales, inventory and other company information to enable them to set goals and to monitor and manage their finances.

The forecast is a more detailed financial plan for a set amount of time, such as the last 6 or 3 months of the financial year.

Budget forecasting is when businesses regularly track actual performance numbers and compare them to the budget. Any insights or risks gleamed from this assessment can then be used to re-forecast the remainder of the budget period. This way, potential issues can be mitigated before they become a major risk, or swift action can be taken when responding to rapid economic or environmental change.

When you’re armed with this information in real-time, you have more control of your financial position throughout the year. It also enables you to take take action to avoid greater risks in the long term, while at the same time helping you to achieve your business goals.

Financial statement software is a program designed to automate the process of creating reports such as profit and loss (income statement), balance sheet and cashflow statements. It achieves this through the extraction of real-time data from ERP, CRM and multiple other data sources, and helps to ensure accuracy, consistency, and compliance with accounting standards.

Statements are fully customizable to suit your business needs with an intuitive interface that enables free-form data analysis. Visualizations such as dashboards, graphs, charts and Sparklines also help to connect the wider business to performance as it's easy to provide an at-a-glance view of your finances.

There are several benefits of using financial data analysis platform over Excel or other manual reporting methods:

1. Time-saving: It frees up the finance team from time-consuming reporting tasks by automating entire processes, allowing for faster reporting, consolidation, and customization.

2. Accuracy: Data is pulled directly into the platform which ensures accuracy and reduces the risk of errors that can occur when maintaining and reworking static spreadsheets.

3. Standardization: It enforces standardization across financial statements, budgets and reports to ensure consistency and enables comparisons across different periods.

4. Collaboration: It enables teams to collaborate and work simultaneously in a secure and auditable environment. This can improve communication and reduce the risk of data discrepancies.

5. Reporting: It provides advanced reporting capabilities, such as customizable templates and interactive dashboards. This makes it easier to visualize data and identify patterns and trends.

6. Security: It provides better security features than Excel, including data encryption, user access controls, and audit trails. This can help protect sensitive financial data from unauthorized access or modification.

7. Customizable: You can add calculations to the statements such as EBIT, margins and ratios.

While Excel can be a useful financial reporting tool, a complete suite of analysis, financial statement and forecasting tools can help businesses streamline their financial reporting processes, improve accuracy, and make better, faster decisions based on real-time data.