Outcomes are important for any Finance organization. There are many means to the end in working within the Office of Finance. Working with the right people to implement the plan and monitor the plan is one method. Building up processes to keep the focus on the right activities is another. The tools utilized to support people and the processes is another important factor. All three create the means to the end for the team. Read more
Tag Archive for: Financial Reporting
On April 26th, Ironside hosted a webinar on Rolling Forecast Essentials. Members of our Financial Performance Management team, Mark Flyamer, Senior Consultant and Rich Canale, Solution Architect, discussed the foundation needed to start implementing rolling forecasts work at your organization.
Rich and Mark discussed design techniques to help you expedite rolling forecast models and minimize the hours needed to get a working solution all while preserving the accuracy and integrity of your financial data.
Financial analytics and performance monitoring are vital components in an organization’s success. The ability to review and quickly react to industry and market changes is a critical competitive advantage that requires agile analytics to get right. The rolling forecast is a continuous planning process that provides your organization with just such an analytical vehicle. Extending beyond the traditional fiscal year review, it combines actual data with forecast results across a rolling number of periods to provide a consistent analytic horizon. An organization’s rolling forecast process must support variance analyses of performance versus targets using the most current information. This is necessary if they want to recognize and reflect actionable changes that will keep them on or get them back on course. Read more
Employee compensation accounts for most of the expense base for service-oriented companies. The true ‘driver’ for this expense revolves around workforce planning. Creating a projection that matches the size of the workforce to the demands of the business can be a difficult exercise. Like most complex tasks, breaking it down into manageable components makes it easier to implement. This is the core principle behind driver-based compensation planning. Read more
The worlds of financial and operational analytics have always diverged, creating a disconnected analytics environment that segregates decision-making. That’s why The Ironside Group is thrilled with IBM’s recent release of IBM Cognos Disclosure Management (CDM), a solution that brings together the power of finance and operational analytics, with the ability to easily annotate your results when you need more than just numbers alone.
IBM Cognos Disclosure Management is a reporting and process automation solution designed to merge financial and operational analytics with narrative analysis in a controlled, auditable environment. You may have experienced the need to produce “board books”, or narrative reports, within Cognos, but had no way to accomplish the job other than custom, one-off reports. This has the potential to be a powerful solution for the Office of Finance.
Easily Combine and Narrate Your Most Accurate BI & PM Data
Cognos Disclosure Management marries financial, operational, and statistical data with narrative analysis in a fluid and dynamic environment. Finance professionals can tie-in Cognos business intelligence with their financial data and value-add analysis, and make it available to others in a controlled, secure collaboration to strengthen analysis and decision-making.
This includes the capability to link report data directly to enterprise data sources. Users can create dynamic reports that update automatically when the numbers in underlying data sources change—ensuring a single, consistent version of the truth throughout the office of finance.
Intelligent Process Design and Automation
Disclosure Management also provides intelligent process design and automation, transforming previously manual processes and enhancing controls well beyond the corporate financial reporting process and across other corporate finance processes. Disclosure Management includes workflow and task management capabilities allowing finance professionals to gain insight into critical performance management and reporting processes through dashboards and alerts. It also optimizes controls and auditability with standard review and validation procedures and ensures they are performed at each level of the organization—from department to entity to corporate headquarters.
Familiar Authoring Environment
Lastly, Cognos Disclosure Management automates the creation of management and executive PowerPoint presentations. Users can take advantage of their expertise with the calculation capabilities of Microsoft Excel, and their knowledge of formatting in Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Word, while utilizing the additional functionality and capabilities of an enterprise database driven solution
Key Features at a Glance
- Easily combine business intelligence and performance management information in a single secure environment.
- Finally create those time consuming, manually annotated reports in a centralized, governed and automated environment with 100% accurate supporting data.
- Simple user interface based in Microsoft Office
- Direct Microsoft PowerPoint integration
- Easy to use wizard for adding queries from your live and accurate BI and PM data sources
- Simple management of reports, workflows and user based security
-
Supports Popular Data Sources
- OLAP (TM1/Controller (FAP), Essbase, MSAS)
- HFM
- External Excel File
- Relational (Oracle, DB2, SQL)
- Cognos Go Office, Cognos Caf̩ (limited Рno dynamic refresh)
- TM1 Perspective Excel Add-in (limited – no dynamic refresh)
- Controller Excel add-in (limited – no dynamic refresh)
- Supports Microsoft Office 2003, 2007 and 2010
Next Steps
If you’d like to learn more about Cognos Disclosure Management, view a live demonstration or request a quote, please contact us on the web or call 1-855-4IRONSIDE for more information.
Ironside is a data, analytics, and AI consulting and technology implementation company. We work with clients to understand their business objectives and day-to-day challenges, then employ our deep expertise in data strategy, architecture and engineering, integration, business intelligence, AI, and generative AI. We create technical solutions and practical approaches designed to drive smarter, data-driven decisions across a company and help it move further and faster toward its business goals.