Business Intelligence (BI) for Accounting Professionals

Transcription

1 Business Intelligence (BI) for Accounting Professionals 22 Sept, 2012 Presented by Hitesh Dixit at ICAI-WIRC Workshop, Mumbai. 1

2 Overview What is BI? Current BI Landscape Relevance for CFOs & Auditors The New Paradigm Professional Opportunities for Chartered Accountants Financial Reporting: Case Study 2

3 What is BI? In a 1958 article, IBM researcher Hans Peter Luhn used the term Business Intelligence for the first time. He defined intelligence as: the ability to apprehend the interrelationships of presented facts in such a way as to guide action towards a desired goal. Reporting Connectors FP&A Decision Support System Trends Response Time Slice & Dice Drill down Actionable Intelligence Analytics Web Portal Data Mining Business Process Management KPIs & Scorecards Mobile BI Dashboards Real-time Benchmarking Data Warehousing Predictive Analytics 3

4 Current BI Landscape 1. Globally BI is $10 bn. industry and is expected to grow 8% y-o-y till 2015, to be one of the fastestgrowing areas across software s, despite difficult business environment! 2. In a global CIO Survey, BI/Analytics is ranked as Top-priority area for 3 out of last 5 years. 3. Acceptance of BI is deepening as more and more users are being included at middle/lower levels. 4. This deepening is direct result of features like speedy rollouts and ease-of-use. 5. BI use is spreading from core depts (Sales/Op s/fin..) to new areas like Quality, Risk Mgt, Audit Support. 6. One out of 3 users has already began using Mobile device access. Source: Gartner

5 Current BI Landscape Gartner BI Magic Quadrant

6 Relevance For CFOs and Auditors: Tax Deadlines Statutory Compliance Accts. Dept s Life revolves around Deadlines! MIS Reporting Payroll Cycles Internal Audits External Audits 6

7 Leveraging technology for Reporting is becoming Critical! Daily Dashboards Periodic MIS reports Trend analysis Benchmarking Business analysis 7

8 Data flow and Architecture 8

9 The New Paradigm Excel Files BI Reporting Cannot store bulky data Response time: Challenge Excessive User Dependence Off-line, not Real-time Limited Data Security Data Authenticity?? Visualize Data w/graphs Anywhere-access Scheduling Updates/Distribution Burst Reporting Data Access is Read-only Access is Matrix-based 9

10 Professional Opportunities for Chartered Accountants 10

11 Examples of Service Offerings: Data warehousing & ETL Specialization Customized BI Solutions Comprehensive BI security solutions Support & Maintenance of BI systems Version upgrades Comprehensive Training Solutions 11

12 Financial Reporting: Case Study Incurred Cost Submissions (ICS) Report 19+ ICS 12

13 Overview About ICS Reports Any contract that includes the (US) FAR clause , Allowable Costs and Payment Clause, is required to submit an adequate cost proposal within six months of its fiscal year end. ICE stands for Incurred Cost Electronically. Also known as DCAA Incurred Cost Submission. The DCAA has also developed an electronic version of the Model Incurred Cost Proposal ( ICE Model ). Minacs Solution We developed 20 ICS schedules, as per DCAA s ICE Schedule requirement. Each ICE schedule is a BI report, created using Cognos BI. These reports are in a ready to deploy and extract model. 13

14 Pain points of ICE Preparation Excessive manual process Numerous hours are spent on gathering and validating data Non automation of data updating leads to more human errors. Over reliance on the preparer and hence chances of human errors Accounting team gets strained Likely late start and less time for final review Staff morale gets affected due to last minute fire drill Chances of filing late or not filing at all Inaccurate submission or incomplete submission Penalties on late submission Ensuring the compliance with the government contracting rules and regulations 21-Sep-12 Copyright Minacs Proprietary Minacs Confidential Information All Rights Reserved 14

15 Minacs Solution With a qualified and well-experienced F&A work force, we have developed ICE reports using Cognos reporting capabilities with an intention of assisting government contractors. All these reports are well tested and reviewed by our functional and technical experts. System Driven Incurred Cost Proposal preparation becomes a click-away process and all the schedules can be directly generated out of the ERP system using Cognos reporting. Schedules generated will be in agreement with the ERP GL reports and reconciliation becomes much straight-forward affair. Increased convenience in a multi company scenario where submission needs to be done individually for each legal entity. Extending Cognos BI Cognos can be effectively utilized for improving the overall financial process efficiency; by having the ICE schedules generated out of ERP system. This also minimizes the manual work involved in preparing the schedules to a huge extent. Export in any report formats The ICE model designed can be generated out in multiple file formats giving greater flexibility for archiving and presenting. 21-Sep-12 Copyright Minacs Proprietary Minacs Confidential Information All Rights Reserved 15

16 Minacs Solution On time submission ICE model is a fully system driven report pack which will reduce the human effort invested in preparing the schedules. This facilitates the preparation process and results in an on time submission. No human errors ICE model is designed in a way that it automates the preparation process and all the schedules come out in the exact format recommended by DCAA. This reduces the possible human errors that can be occurred during the preparation process. Timely updates and upgrades ICE pack has been prepared with help of experts with rich industry experience. This pack comes from a team of consultants who are constantly working in this space and regularly updated on DCAA changes. All such changes are updated in the package. Recognize user types ICE model is designed in a way that security levels can be applied and user level authorization can be setup. 16

17 ICS Schedules The following are the compulsory schedules: Schedule A Schedule B Schedule C(x) Schedule D(x) Schedule E Schedule G Summary Schedule H Schedule H Schedule H-1 Schedule I Schedule J Schedule K Schedule L Schedule M Schedule N Schedule O Schedule P 21-Sep-12 Copyright Minacs Proprietary Minacs Confidential Information All Rights Reserved 17

18 Prompt Selection ICS report prompts are developed in a well-structured domain, self explanatory and is more effective than any other specific prompt options. To a large extent we focused to construct a generic prompt design throughout reports for improved user convenience and dynamically driven report generation. 21-Sep-12 Copyright Minacs Proprietary Minacs Confidential Information All Rights Reserved 18

19 Schedule A Summary of Claimed Indirect Rates 19

20 Schedule B General and Administrative (G&A) Expenses (Final Indirect Cost Pool) 20

21 Schedule C Sched C (1) thru Sched C (6) - Overhead Expenses (Final Indirect Cost Pool) 21

22 Schedule D Sched D (1) thru Sched D (6) - Intermediate Indirect Cost Pool (ex. Occupancy) 22

23 Schedule E Reconciliation of Claimed Allocation Bases 23

24 Schedule G Reconciliation of Books of Account and Claimed Direct Costs 24

25 Summary Schedule H Direct Contract/Subcontract Costs/IR&D/B&P Summarizes schedule H direct costs and links to other schedules 25

26 Schedule H Direct Cost by Contract/Subcontract, IR&D/B&P Direct Incurred, and Indirect Expense Applied at Claimed Rates 26

27 Schedule H1 Government Participation in Indirect Cost Pools 27

28 Schedule I Schedule of Cumulative Direct and Indirect Cost Claimed & Billed 28

29 Schedule J Subcontract Information 29

30 Schedule K Summary of Hours and Amounts on T&M/Labor Hour Contracts 30

31 Schedule L Reconciliation of Total Payroll to Total Labor Distribution 31

32 Schedule M Listing of Decisions/Agreements/Approvals and Description of Accounting/Organizational Changes 32

33 Schedule N Certificate of Final Indirect Costs 33

34 Schedule O Contract Closing Information 34

35 Schedule P Computation of Allowable IR&D/B&P Costs 35

36 Summary What is BI? Current BI Landscape Relevance for CFOs & Auditors The New Paradigm Professional Opportunities for Chartered Accountants Financial Reporting: Case Study 36

37 Thank you!