Managerial / Management Reporting and Analysis

Accounting systems such as Microsoft Office Accounting are primarily designed to perform the bookkeeping function of an organization or business. These systems are primarily record keeping programs designed to satisfy the financial reporting needs of accountants and bookkeepers – the creation of  financial and tax reports.  Their design is specifically focused upon data consistency and the implementation of accounting principles necessary to provide profit and loss and balance sheet reports.  These accounting systems, fortunately, implement the accounting profession's strong set of practices for maintaining data consistency and accuracy. 

Accounting systems tend to be very process oriented – the process of recording financial data, the process of processing payroll, the process of paying bills, the process of collecting receipts, etc.  They are focused upon those processes which are typically controlled or executed by the accounting function in an organization.  But organizations need to accomplish more than just accounting functions.  Organizations need to perform managerial functions for Marketing, Sales, Production, Manufacturing, Distribution, Operations, Personnel and Human Resources among others.  Fortunately, many of these functions can be aided by using data collected by the accounting systems.  The key to helping manage these other functions, however, is unlocking the data recorded in the accounting systems for use in all management reporting and analysis needs.

Previously stated, these accounting systems are primarily designed to satisfy the financial reporting needs of the organization.  However, some accounting systems have attempted to expand their reporting functionality to be more general purpose.  While an improvement, most of these attempts are still limited by an architecture originally designed for financial reporting.

As accounting systems have attempted to broaden their scope, a new type of general business management reporting and analysis has been evolving.  One that focuses upon ease of use and both ad hoc and recurring reporting.  This development  was strongly influenced by the tremendous increase in sales data captured by point of sale checkout systems.  These data spawned an opportunity and a need for a management reporting and analysis capability well beyond that which was provided in then current database and accounting systems. This need has evolved into what is now called Business Intelligence (BI) software. 

Using technology from Data Warehousing and On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP), business intelligence systems combine the ability to manage, store and process large amounts of data with very flexible and easy-to-use reporting and analysis software.  One key development has been the ability to classify data into many dimensions such as Customer, Product, Time, Store/Channel/Outlet, etc.  This dimensional dissection can provide insights into behavior and help identify need satisfaction opportunities. 

As this Business Intelligence’s adoption increased, users recognized that business intelligence software was just as valuable for general management reporting and analysis of data other than that captured by point of sale.  And that BI can provide just as much value to smaller companies as to large companies.

The combination of the data collection and data consistency abilities of accounting systems with the technology created by business intelligence software provides a perfect combination to unlock the data maintained in accounting systems.  This combination provides management reporting and analysis for those organizational functions above and beyond accounting needs and financial reporting.

SBA Data Explorer Suite provides this unique combination of technologies and systems to unlock the data in Microsoft Office Accounting System versions and to provide management reporting and analysis capabilities for all organizational functions including Sales, Marketing, Manufacturing, Distributions, Operations, Human Resources as well as Financial.  And it does so at a price designed for the smaller company or organization.