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ROI Calculators for JD Edwards and Oracle E-Business Suite

ryan.alford — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 19:00:18 +0000

InsightSoftware.com has an extensive lineup of ROI calculators to help answer difficult business questions related to an ERP system implementation – JD Edwards and Oracle E-Business Suite are no exception. Do you understand the related costs? What are the benefits?

Start enhancing your ERP system today, with InsightSoftware.com’s help:

Better Budget Cycles – Perform unlimited, concurrent budget cycles

The key to an optimized budget process is fantastic work flow. Modeling tools may look great, but unless you can automate the work flow process, you can look forward to long budget cycles that are difficult to manage and prone to error.

Better Cash Management – Summarize transactional AR data

If ever there was a business process that needed to run optimally; it would have to be cash collection. Cash is the lifeblood of every business and represents one of the most important optimizations our software provides.

Better Check Processing – Analyze payment versus invoice date metric

Organizations pay an average of $60 to $75 per check processed. Therefore, optimizing the number of checks that you cut each month has a significant impact on your bottom line. Insight enables the ability to proactively monitor the number of checks and invoices, per supplier per period.

Better ERP Implementations – Rapidly create ad-hoc inquires

Creating custom developed reports can be the single most expensive and risky line item on a project plan. Using Insight as your report and data validation platform significantly reduces risk, saves hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of dollars compared to custom report development.

Better Month and Year Ends – Immediately identify data integrity issues

The month and year end can be a stressful experience but it doesn’t have to be. Easy ad-hoc inquiry is the secret to closing the month end quicker, yet most people worry about reporting. We have great reporting but we also bring to the table a culture of ongoing ad-hoc inquiry and data integrity management.

Better Payables – Easily match invoices and payments

When Accounts Payable does not have visibility to essential aspects of the entire receipt-to-payment process, it may not be possible to process and pay suppliers within terms. As a result, discounts may be lost and the financial impact may be significant.

Better Supply Chain – Analyze aged inventory movements

You have limited funds available to invest in inventory. Carrying too much can help in satisfying customers, but reducing inventory translates to immediate improvement in cash flow. By identifying slow versus fast moving items and their movement drivers, you can adjust to further enhance and optimize your overall number of inventory turns, while maintaining and improving customer service.

Author: ryan.alford

Ryan is the Internet Marketing Manager for InsightSoftware.com.

Spreadsheets Gone Wild!

ryan.alford — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 17:36:11 +0000

Using spreadsheets in conjunction with an ERP system is one thing. (It’s not suggested, but it happens.) However, using spreadsheets without an ERP is a completely different story altogether. According to research from the Aberdeen Group, many small and mid-size businesses are using spreadsheets without an ERP (such as JD Edwards or Oracle E-Business Suite) but in conjunction with a standalone accounting tool.

“Not surprisingly, spreadsheets top the list,” the Aberdeen research report explains. “But interestingly, spreadsheets were seldom the only tool used even in very small companies. Often spreadsheets are used in conjunction with standalone accounting applications and other desktop applications that do not qualify as true enterprise level applications or other applications that lack the breadth, depth or level of integration of ERP.”

So, it’s a “chicken and egg” scenario; which came first, the ERP or the spreadsheet? In most cases, the spreadsheets have been there all along. It’s hard to break a habit that seems to work efficiently, but there are other solutions that work better.

Does your organization rely on spreadsheets? If so, are they in combination with an ERP system or standalone accounting tool?

Author: ryan.alford

Ryan is the Internet Marketing Manager for InsightSoftware.com.

Reconciliations: It Doesn’t Have to be This Way!

ryan.alford — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 18:30:33 +0000

Check out InsightSoftware.com’s cartoon about JD Edwards reconciliations:

http://www.youtube.com/insightsoftware#p/a/u/0/RspO90mFy8w

Stay tuned for more in the series. Let us know what you think!

Author: ryan.alford

Ryan is the Internet Marketing Manager for InsightSoftware.com.

Reconciling the Accounts in JD Edwards Doesn’t Have to Be Painful!

ryan.alford — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:27:37 +0000

A company’s financial prowess and compliance go hand-in-hand. Without proper insight and strategic oversight of the business, many of today’s top global companies are missing a large piece of the financial puzzle.

CFOs should maintain the perfect balance between strategy, planning, forecasting, budgeting, reporting, and analysis. This is more simplified (and cost-effective) by having an automated process for account reconciliation. Without a monitoring system in place, performance improvements will be limited.

In a research report called “How to improve reconciliation activities,” published by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, many “account reconciliation problems are preventable. Timing, is also frequently an issue: account reconciliations that are in arrears more than one month risk misstatement of the financial results. Depending on the level of risk, perform reconciliations daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly.”

Curious to know what to do about reconciliation problems in JD Edwards? Implement automation that recognizes reconciling items and streamlines the review process.

Author: ryan.alford

Ryan is the Internet Marketing Manager for InsightSoftware.com.

Mark Kolanach in Da House!

ryan.alford — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:29:45 +0000

As you may already know, InsightSoftware.com hired Mark Kolanach as the U.S. regional manager for the Southeast.

Based in Raleigh, N.C., Mark has an extensive background in business intelligence. This includes roles in pre-sales and sales at Oracle and QlikTech.

Here are Mark’s top goals (and some random thoughts) for his new role:

“I plan to evangelize our solution in the Southeast. In this region of the U.S., many companies deserve the opportunity to discover the Insight difference.”

“I’ll also focus on mid-market companies. Without millions to spend on data analysis tools, they need a way to improve their margins and efficiencies. We can enable companies to identify ways to do this in days or weeks versus months – at a price point they can afford.”

“Insight’s short ‘time-to-benefit’ is key for companies needing better access to real-time data. We simply solve problems NOW, instead of selling them on a vision of what they can possibly have in six months.”

“We help organizations simplify how they measure themselves against their annual strategic objectives. How many hoops are they jumping through to gather accurate metrics now?”

So, what excites Mark about the Insight product?

“The most exciting thing for me about our product is the time-to-benefit. You can literally make the decision to work with us in addressing your data analysis needs today, and then use the tool tomorrow. Since we just plug into the ERP system, Insight is completely preconfigured to work immediately.

“Our pre-packaged solutions are functionally designed to address the areas of greatest benefit: Procure to pay, order to ship, month end close and many others. The return on investment is very short for many of our customers. That is the reason I joined InsightSoftware.com. There isn’t a lot of satisfaction in identifying areas of great need in an organization and then telling them how they can address them in a month, or even six months from now. Six months to benefit just doesn’t cut it in this economy.”

Author: ryan.alford

Ryan is the Internet Marketing Manager for InsightSoftware.com.