Why do so many businesses struggle to have a competitive edge or fail within the first five years of start-up? For many, it’s due to the difficulty of keeping a finger on the pulse of the business.
This results directly from a lack of helpful and unique reports required to run the business efficiently and make meaningful decisions. Statistics show that data is growing at a rate of 56% year-on-year,yet 42% of businesses admit that many decisions are based on inaccurate/incomplete data. The single most important key to succeed in the long term is to manage your financial data effectively … how to organise and view it quickly and easily so the numbers make sense.
The Business Intelligence (BI) reporting tool, Sage Intelligence (formerly BIC), achieves this efficiently and accurately by extracting data from almost any accounting source and rendering it into the familiar platform of Microsoft Excel. Developed reports can be saved and run over and over at the click of a button. Quite simply, Sage Intelligence transforms Excel into your default report writer.
Below are four reports that can easily be extracted from your financial package that will give you a competitive edge:
1. Understanding sales trends
How have sales grown or shrunk? What areas are making the most margin and contribution? How effective are salespersons? What are their comparative margins?
2. Managing Inventory
Comparing Inventory levels to actual average sales to determine the number of months of stock being held. Setting re-order levels based on the company’s own factors. Comparing cost of holding stock per store/warehouse.
3. Budgeting and forecasting
Often accounting packages are not optimally designed for budgeting and forecasting, which is why so many people use Microsoft Excel. Sage Intelligence presents data in Excel, making easy integration with current budgeting processes.
4. Dashboards
All the key indicators needed for running your business summarised on one page – Income Statement summary (MTD and YTD), Sales trends, Top expenses, Top Customers, Critical stock levels, etc. With nearly 30 years combined BI experience, Flexcel’s four-member Sage Certified consultancy team headed by myself, is able to understand individual reporting needs and produce unique reporting solutions.
If your company is using Pastel Partner and Evolution, Accpac (Sage300) or Syspro, Flexcel is able to produce reports that will give your business the competitive edge it needs to succeed in a competitive market
