Budgeting Software Journal

PROPHIX Software is set to release an updated version of its SQL Server based solution, which offers integration with SharePoint customers by leveraging Microsoft Reporting Services and its unique Smart Client interface. SharePoint access is available directly within the PROPHIX user interface – giving PROPHIX users the ability to fully access all SharePoint applications including Microsoft’s Business Intelligence offerings. In addition, PROPHIX’s Offline Excel capabilities and its Advanced Data Visualization components provide yet another alternative to collaborate with users within SharePoint as opposed to PROPHIX’s user interface. [Read more →]

Adaptive Planning announced the release of Adaptive Planning Version 5.5. The latest release of the budgeting, forecasting, and reporting software delivers powerful new collaboration and analysis features, increases openness to other applications, and broadens accessibility to additional users throughout the world. With this release, Adaptive Planning continues to set the standard as the most powerful, easy to use, and collaborative planning and reporting solution for companies of all sizes.

Adaptive Planning Version 5.5 further extends the solution’s leading collaboration capabilities through the addition of two features – Cell Notes and Audit Trail – that allow end users to access key information about their financial model and the underlying planning process. The release delivers increased openness, enhancing data integration with the availability of new connectors, a secure web services API, and new mapping capabilities. And it broadens accessibility by supporting local languages as well as the Firefox browser. [Read more →]

Alight LLC, maker of Alight Planning software, today announced the immediate availability of Alight Planning Version 4.5 featuring expanded support for importing and integrating actuals. Version 4.5’s new features for combining actuals data into plan files further enhance its groundbreaking driver-based planning architecture, giving finance staff the ability to automatically perform variance and causal analysis between actuals and plan, spread actuals data into rolling forecasts, and model actuals data using Alight’s unique units/rate/amount architecture. [Read more →]

Alight LLC, maker of Alight Planning financial planning and analysis software, today announced that BPM Partners, the leading independent authority on business performance management (BPM) solutions, has named Alight as its “Best New Vendor of 2008” in its annual “Beyond the Hype 2008” Webcast. In awarding the honor, BPM Partners cited the unique driverbased planning architecture of Alight Planning, as well as the product’s deep-seated modeling capabilities.

An Excel replacement, Alight Planning has already gained a solid user base for its driver-based planning approach which employs a unit-rate-amount architecture and object-based linking for line items which are the building blocks for financial plans. The result is better insight into the underlying activity drivers of a business, giving planners a better handle on forward-looking plans and backward-looking analysis of actuals.

“Alight Planning is very focused on what its name implies—budgeting and planning,” said Craig Schiff, CEO of BPM Partners, as part of the company’s annual Beyond the Hype 2008: Unbiased Vendor Review presentation. Schiff also noted that Alight Planning has “a very deep set of functionality that enables collaborative budgeting, forecasting and financial reporting, targeted at midsized and larger companies. In addition, Alight Planning automates sensitivity analysis and goal seek—both essential operations for analyzing complex financial data.”

BPM Partners’ annual “Beyond the Hype” report is the product of a yearly survey of BPM customers, vendors and trends conducted by the firm. Results were presented via a Webcast cosponsored by Business Finance magazine on January 15, 2008.

“BPM Partners is well-known by Business Performance Software users as well as throughout the BPM software industry. Its opinions carry tremendous weight, which makes this honor hugely gratifying,” said Rand Heer, president of Alight LLC. “The strong reception we’ve received to Alight Planning from customers, as well as from industry experts like BPM Partners, gives us terrific momentum as we move into 2008.”

In addition to its positive view of Alight Planning’s strategic approach, as well as the extensive experience of individuals behind the product’s creation, BPM Partners lauded the software’s sophisticated approach to budgeting.

“….it isn’t often you see someone new jump into the budgeting software category, which requires extensive domain expertise,” Schiff said. “Usually we see new vendors focusing on dashboards, databases, visualization and the like, but to focus on something as deep as budgeting and forecasting is fairly rare. It is interesting to note that modeling is built throughout the entire product. It’s not an afterthought; it’s the whole structure of the product.”

PROPHIX Software launched their most powerful performance management solution to date. PROPHIX for SQL Server is an integrated performance management application that empowers organizations with budgeting, planning, forecasting, reporting, consolidations, and personnel planning capabilities. By enabling organizations to create measurable targets against their business strategies, PROPHIX for SQL Server ensures corporate objectives are met or exceeded. [Read more →]

Clarity Systems announced the launch of Clarity 6 Legal Edition 2.0, a newly enhanced budgeting, planning, and reporting software solution for professional services organizations. With new functionality and features, Clarity 6 Legal Edition 2.0 has sophisticated capabilities that extend beyond budgeting to include financial variance reporting and analysis. Variance analysis of data such as billings, expenses, compensation and hours at the timekeeper level are now easily accessed and compared in real time. This offers professionals the flexibility to conduct variance analysis and reporting across multiple scenarios or over periods of time. Clarity 6 Legal Edition 2.0 also allows users to drill down from a report to a single transaction and view invoice/expense details or attach user commentary to a specific field. [Read more →]

Clarity Systems and EDGARfilings announced a partnership to offer a seamlessly integrated financial reporting solution. This partnership is an exciting opportunity for public companies as they can now create SEC reports using Clarity Financial Statement Reporting (FSR) and electronically file these reports with the SEC using EDGARizer software. Clarity FSR, a software solution launched by Clarity Systems earlier this year, produces external financial documents, such as the 10K and 10Q, and other regulatory reports. EDGARizer software converts and transmits properly formatted and compliant documents to the SEC within tight filing deadlines while saving customers’ time, money and personnel resources. [Read more →]

Adaptive Planning announced that SourceForge has implemented its software to automate their financial planning and reporting. A leading online portal for the IT professional, software development, and open source communities, SourceForge has deployed Adaptive Planning and integrated it with their Oracle Financials system in order to accelerate their budgeting and forecasting processes and simplify reporting on both actual and plan information.

Within a five year span that began in 2002, SourceForge has transformed itself from a hardware company to the global technology community’s hub for information exchange, goods for geeks, and open source software distribution and services. The company’s network of web sites serves more than 32 million unique visitors each month and includes SourceForge.net, Slashdot.org, ThinkGeek.com, Linux.com, and ITManagersJournal. [Read more →]

PROPHIX Software announced the release of PROPHIX Express. PROPHIX Express is a complete financial performance management package with powerful budgeting and planning capabilities, specifically designed for organizations looking to implement a robust solution in as little as three business days without sacrificing flexibility.

PROPHIX Express complements PROPHIX Software’s existing suite of financial performance management solutions, including PROPHIX for SQL Serverâ„¢ and PROPHIX Enterprise. Providing budgeting, planning, analysis and reporting capabilities integrated in a single solution, PROPHIX Express also includes a pre-built dashboard and scorecards, financial reports and statements such as cash flow, balance sheet, headcount and profit and loss statements, as well as a personnel planning module and unique Delta Analysis tool, without forgoing ease of use. [Read more →]

Alight Planning announced today the industry’s most robust driver-based financial planning and analysis software with a multitude of innovative features including a units, rates and amounts architecture, automated sensitivity analysis, goal seek operations and intuitive modeling with object-based linking. Aimed at mid-sized businesses through Fortune 1,000 divisions, Alight Planning automates complex business planning so users can move beyond the limitations of Microsoft Excel for more accurate strategic plans, revenue projections, budgets and rolling forecasts.

“Financial staff spends too much time struggling with the limitations of spreadsheets and not enough time doing real planning and analysis,” said Rand Heer, president of Alight Planning. “Alight Planning gives finance and line manager’s insights into the cause-and-effect relationships of the drivers of the business. This empowers them with better information to more quickly and accurately react to the market.”

Alight Planning offers a complete set of collaborative budgeting, forecasting and financial reporting capabilities with a unique architecture created from the ground up. Alight Planning’s flexible modeling interfaces with object-based linking lets finance staff build more accurate and auditable driver-based financial plans than with today’s spreadsheets. Automated algorithms help finance staff and line managers analyze data with on-the-spot insights into the important factors driving business results. Alight Planning also allows for easy importing and modeling of actuals data from outside financial and operational databases. This enables planners to quickly identify trends and incorporate them into rolling forecasts for more enhanced real-time decision making.

“Driver-based planning is now widely accepted as a best practice for developing any type of plan with financial projections such as strategic plans, budgets and forecasts,” said Robert Kugel, senior vice president and research director at Ventana Research. “By more closely relating planning processes and performance analysis to underlying operations, line managers and the finance organization can gain significantly more actionable insights into the business, which result in better decisions and allocation of resources. Alight Planning’s robust planning capabilities distinguish it from the pack and will help companies cut costs, shorten decision cycles and increase their ability to adapt to changing conditions.”

Alight Planning’s innovative architectures provide a host of differentiating features
including:
• Intuitive modeling tools with object-based linking that cut modeling time by as much as 50 percent compared to spreadsheets or other planning software packages.
• Easy importing and modeling of actuals data from any database at any level of detail for constructing variance reports and rolling forecasts.
• Automated causal analysis that identifies underlying unit volume and rate impacts that cause variances in financial plans.
• System-generated audit trails for tracing of complex activity driver relationships.
• Automated tools, such as sensitivity analysis and goal seek, that let finance staff instantly identify the most important assumptions that drive financial performance.
• Up to 100 unique scenarios within a single plan file for tracking and manipulating budget versions, rolling forecasts and alternate strategies.

Alight Planning customers are building more complex driver-based financial plans in a fraction of the time it would take in spreadsheets.
“We needed a multi-user solution that could be tailored to our needs with quick and easy deployment – spreadsheets just weren’t working for us,” said Larry Van Kuran, senior consultant, Pharmacy Strategy and Operations for Kaiser Permanente. “We are now using Alight Planning software to plan and monitor a large capital investment. Not only did Alight Planning significantly reduce the amount of time to get a model up and
running, but we were able to do complex driver-based operations and scenario analyses that we simply couldn’t do in spreadsheets.”