YOUR PLANNING & REPORTING SUDDENLY GOT EASIER AND MORE EFFECTIVE!

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1 YOUR PLANNING & REPORTING SUDDENLY GOT EASIER AND MORE EFFECTIVE! "We went from complex, inefficient spreadsheets to an automated, transparent and efficient forecasting, budgeting & reporting environment." For more than 30 years, Infor BI solutions have helped thousands of companies around the globe optimise the effectiveness of their business processes and analytical reporting. In a single platform, Infor BI meets all your budgeting, financial modeling, forecasting, dashboard and analytical business intelligence reporting requirements. It can be quickly deployed across the entire enterprise with its flexible, graphically rich user interface options. Infor BI collates and consolidates all business critical data (from any source) into a single view. It applies your business rules, calculation logic, user and data security, combined with a read/write interface to suit the many differing needs and types of users in your organisation. The solution allows me to collaborate with managers and it improves the timeliness of the data collection. We have a better ability to manage the funds as we can now identify any areas or sites that are not performing as well as others and we can make informed decisions about where we need to invest more staff." REPORTING Even with sophisticated IT infrastructures, many organisations still encounter problems finding the information they need, when and how they need it. To overcome these obstacles, companies need a robust performance management solution that will access, filter, analyse, and publish information throughout their organisations anytime, anywhere. The solution they choose must be able to merge data from multiple sources into a single report, helping them quickly transform raw data into valuable, shared information. Infor BI accomplishes this by accessing data from leading online analytical processing (OLAP) and relational sources or other semi-structured data via standard interfaces like OLE DB, ODBO and others, so you can simultaneously present information from different data sources in a single report. All reports are instantly web-ready and can be deployed using standard web browsers.

2 BUDGETING & FORECASTING How does Infor BI budgeting provide value to your organisation? It is so reassuring to know that spreadsheets have been removed from our budgeting and reporting processes and we are now operating with system derived data. A timely, engaging budget process is a foundation for the financial success of any organisation a blueprint to measure and predict business performance, allowing improved decision making and confidence in those decisions. Infor BI delivers an ideal platform for better planning models. Introducing multidimensional data (OLAP) to business modelling simplifies and enhances your ability to accurately predict future performance, including rolling forecasts and rapid what if scenarios that reflect changing business conditions. It provides standardisation and management of all budgeting and forecasting processes. Infor BI solutions can be used to consolidate and/or eliminate disparate, complex spreadsheets. All budget stakeholders can enter data directly into a central database via the standard web interface, or even retain the familiarity of MS Excel without the limitations of individual spreadsheets, if users prefer that front-end. Comparative reporting includes any combination of actual, budget and/or forecast versions, plus capacity for a fully integrated, coordinated view of profit & loss, balance sheet and cash flow impacts. Infor BI functional capabilities include: modelling creating dimensions, cubes and data relationships to represent key parts of your business budget entry top-down, bottom-up, middle-out and splash data entry, in any combination data wizards copy data/versions, formulas, allocations, seasonality, capex, cash flow, etc unlimited versions budgets, rolling forecasts and what if scenarios comments and unstructured data can be applied down to cell level real-time calculations, instantly consolidated (all users, companies, divisions, products, etc.) shared calculations and business rules, all managed centrally attributes extra information and parallel labels/hierarchies stored with data elements security data and user security administered at the cube, dimension or cell level approval workflows, version status and reconciliation views designed for non-technical business professionals to use without the need for IT support

3 COMPONENT OVERVIEW - Infor BI OLAP Database the engine room Infor BI OLAP a core component of Infor BI is the database platform for write back of budgeting and forecasting data, while also providing fast access to large volumes of summarised data for reporting and analysis. "Infor budgeting & forecasting is fantastic, a massive time saver, no more integrity issues, users love the simplicity" "There were challenges along the way, but [Infor BI] met our requirements much easier than what we'd thought possible. We worked really well with the PA consultants" Infor BI OLAP stores all the complexity of your spreadsheet and reporting databases in a simplified, robust, centralised data store which is easy to administer. Being an online application, multiple users also have concurrent access to the same business data without fear of inconsistent versions, providing a single source of truth. Infor BI OLAP allows you to leverage rather than replace your existing systems, and to browse your data from any angle and level of detail. Since the information is stored in a central database, Infor BI OLAP minimises typical spreadsheet limitations like data manipulation, manual rekeying, time consuming consolidations, and the risk of human error. Changes to a formula, prices, assumptions, or organisational restructure are simplified and centralised. All changes update the entire model without risk of a broken spreadsheet link. Infor BI OLAP is memory-resident, which means all write actions and data modifications are fast and stored in auditable relational tables. With this function, you can easily undo multiple actions to create optimal models quickly and efficiently.

4 Application Studio where it all happens Infor BI Application Studio is unique in providing a common business application layer for all key budget processes and reporting. This means the user never has to change applications, regardless of the function. It controls security, workflow, reporting, dashboards, budget input templates and administration Infor BI Application Studio enhances and streamlines your business intelligence strategy by joining data from multiple sources into a single reporting system. Our previous reporting solution relied on visual basic Excel macros to extract and manipulate data from our finance system, which wasn't very accurate or reliable. With [Infor BI] it's now all good, so that was a big win from the start And it s all web deployable, meaning all content and functions are available anytime, anywhere. Data from Infor BI OLAP and other leading OLAP and relational databases, MS Word/Excel documents, s and other semi-structured data sources can be immediately published. With Application Studio you can provide ease of use and a tailored user experience from summary dashboards to dynamic drill down and analytical reporting with graphically rich interfaces which help turn transactional data into knowledge and action. Office Plus the flexible MS Excel Interface Infor BI Office Plus provides users with familiar look and feel of the Microsoft Excel interface with a direct link to the Infor BI OLAP database, ensuring all data is maintained in a secure central repository, i.e. all data, business logic and calculations remain in the underlying OLAP database, not disparate spreadsheets. This interface is particularly well suited to power users such as business analysts and system administrators as it provides direct import/export and quick adhoc analysis tools, alongside standard MS Excel functionality.

5 Integration bringing it all together The Infor Budgeting & Forecasting implementation has given us an enormous benefit. An effective budget solution considers the multiple data sources that exist in your organisation such as ERP, Payroll / HR and various operational line-of-business transactional systems and databases. Infor BI provides a number of integration tools and methods to suit your business requirements and the relative level of sophistication. We most commonly use the following methods of data integration: Infor BI Office Plus - import of MS Excel, CSV or text files Infor BI Application Studio direct query of multiple third party data sources, within a single report Infor BI Import Master complex and/or scheduled interfaces that require advanced ETL tools Infor BI Import Master uses a graphical interface to more easily specify and manage the export and import. It performs the functions extract/transform/load (ETL) providing a level of repeatable, frequent automation of data extracts and loading from source to target systems. Infor BI Import Master ensures a consistent structure and standardisation of data. Now comparing data held in different data applications becomes meaningful. Leverage our experience Professional Advantage (PA) is one of the largest INFOR partner and service providers in the Pacific region. We have a team of specialist Infor BI consultants and project managers with real world business and accounting backgrounds, not just technical developers. We have extensive experience in designing and implementing budgeting and reporting solutions across a broad range of customer requirements. Along the way, we ve built up layers of industry specific knowledge and reusable components, meaning our consultants can pick up and understand your business requirements rapidly. CONTACT US Professional Advantage Pty Ltd Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, London enquiries@pa.com.au