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FinancialForce Sharpens Customer Focus in Services Businesses

Posted by Robert Kugel on 31 January 2023
FinancialForce offers cloud-based ERP and professional services automation (PSA) software. The company targets midsize and larger services companies, especially those that provide professional services (such as consultants or field service organizations) as well as those that offer subscription-based or recurring revenue services and products. FinancialForce’s key point of differentiation is that... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, Digital Commerce, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Subscription Management

Optimizing Subscription Management for Finance and Accounting

Posted by Robert Kugel on 24 January 2023
The subscription and recurring revenue business models became a significant part of the economy this century with the advent of streaming services for entertainment and software as a service. They have grown in popularity because they enhance customer lifetime value by evolving what had previously been a one-time-sale relationship into a delivery of ongoing services which can create a more loyal... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting

2023 Market Agenda: Greater Agility for a Less Certain World

Posted by Robert Kugel on 20 January 2023
Ventana Research recently announced its 2023 research agenda for Operations and Supply Chain, continuing the guidance we’ve offered for nearly two decades to help organizations across industries derive optimal value and improved outcomes from business technology. Readily available, innovative digital technology can help organizations optimize operations by aligning customer demand with... Read More

Topics: Continuous Planning, Product Information Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, Property Technology, Supplier Relationship Management

Office of Finance 2023 Market Agenda: A Brave New World

Posted by Robert Kugel on 19 January 2023
Ventana Research recently announced its 2023 Market Agenda for the Office of Finance, continuing the guidance we have provided since 2003 on the practical use of technology for the finance and accounting department. Our insights and best practices aim to enable organizations to operate with agility and resiliency, improving performance and delivering greater value as a strategic partner. We craft... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Professional Services Automation Increases Efficiency

Posted by Robert Kugel on 17 January 2023
A professional services automation application marries front- and back-office functions, helping services organizations address core business challenges by ensuring that: Projects are optimally staffed by those with the right skills. Individual professionals are as productive as possible by maximizing their billable time within constraints (such as time required for improving their skills) as... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Epicor Enriches Vertical-Plus Approach for Growth

Posted by Robert Kugel on 10 January 2023
Vertical strategies for enterprise resource planning systems are not new. They emerged more than two decades ago as vendors looked for ways to reduce costs and shorten time-to-value in a software category that was notorious for high costs and extended timelines. A vertical-plus strategy – the plus means it’s a platform, not just an application – takes advantage of recently available technology to... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Cloud Computing, ERP and Continuous Accounting, AI and Machine Learning

Workiva Simplifies ESG Reporting

Posted by Robert Kugel on 28 December 2022
Workiva offers an environmental, social and governance application that enables organizations to manage the highly distributed tasks necessary for reporting to regulators and stakeholders on ESG matters. ESG issues have grown increasingly pressing over the past few years as investors and government entities urge organizations to measure and disclose relevant metrics. I’ve already covered the... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management

The Data Pantry Accelerates Actionable Analytics for Decision-Making

Posted by Robert Kugel on 22 December 2022
Ventana Research uses the term “data pantry” to describe a method of data storage (and the technology and process blueprint for its construction) created for a specific set of users and use cases in business-focused software. It’s a pantry because all the data one needs is readily available and easily accessible, with labels that are immediately recognized and understood by the users of the... Read More

Topics: Continuous Planning, Business Intelligence, Data Management, Business Planning, Data, Financial Performance Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, data operations, Streaming Data Events, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning

The Planning Center of Excellence

Posted by Robert Kugel on 20 December 2022
In the face of a very uncertain future, companies have been discovering the value of rapid planning and budgeting cycles. As events unfold, they’re changing expectations for the future significantly on a daily or weekly basis. However, even when the world returns to a steadier state, companies will benefit from making their planning and budgeting processes faster, easier, more relevant, more... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, IBP, Business Planning, CFO, Integrated Business Planning

Virtual Audits Improve Financial Statement Quality, Work-Life Balance

Posted by Robert Kugel on 15 December 2022
After decades of overpromising and underdelivering, technology has now evolved to the point where it is fundamentally changing how accountants work – for the better. The pandemic and resulting support of remote work set the stage for a transformation of how accounting efforts are structured and performed, all for the better. Remote audits that became routine during lockdowns are evolving into... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Manage Your Spending Purse with Emburse

Posted by Robert Kugel on 12 December 2022
Emburse offers a single platform that enables organizations — small, midsize and larger —to manage their travel and related expenses, pay invoices and handle their corporate spend. Today, technology has the ability to significantly increase the efficiency with which organizations handle expenditures while simultaneously containing costs, increasing controls and improving visibility into where the... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Accelerate Closing with a Faster Tax Provision Process

Posted by Robert Kugel on 07 December 2022
Managing corporate income taxes is a challenge for chief financial officers and their tax department professionals. Tax codes are often complex, so tax accounting as well as the data required for tax provisions and tax compliance are different enough from statutory accounting to create significant workloads for the tax department. The provision for income tax expense and, for public companies,... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Financial Performance Management

Vena Provides Practical Support for Integrated Business Planning

Posted by Robert Kugel on 30 November 2022
Vena Solutions offers organizations a platform for financial planning, analysis and reporting as well as software to manage accounting consolidation and close processes. From the start, Vena has designed its applications to meet the needs of midsize organizations, which typically have the same requirements as large enterprises but with significantly fewer resources to acquire, manage and maintain... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management

Oracle NetSuite Goes Full Suite Ahead to Deliver Customer Value

Posted by Robert Kugel on 25 November 2022
The theme of this year’s Oracle NetSuite SuiteWorld was “Full Suite Ahead,” with content aimed at demonstrating to customers (and prospective buyers) the value of using more of what NetSuite has to offer. The business logic behind this concept goes beyond the obvious objective of upselling existing customers to increase the average annual recurring revenue. As is often the case with subscription... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Finance Performance Management

Technology Puts the ‘A’ Back in FP&A

Posted by Robert Kugel on 22 November 2022
The starting point of an era is never precise and rarely conforms to neat calendar delineations. For example, the start of the 20th century is associated with the outbreak of war in 1914. So I expect that decades from now, the consensus will hold that what became known as the 21st century began in the year 2020, with the pandemic serving as a catalyst that accelerated already existing trends and... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Intelligence, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, AI and Machine Learning

IBM Planning Analytics Enables Agility Based on Insight

Posted by Robert Kugel on 18 November 2022
IBM Planning Analytics with Watson is a comprehensive, cloud-based business planning application that supports what Ventana Research calls integrated business planning. We coined this term in 2007 to describe a high-participation approach to business planning that integrates strategy, operations and finance. Our Next Generation Business Planning Benchmark Research demonstrated the value of IBP:... Read More

Topics: Predictive Analytics, Office of Finance, embedded analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, Watson, Digital transformation, AI and Machine Learning

Planning for a More Uncertain World with Board International

Posted by Robert Kugel on 15 November 2022
The door opened to a new world in 2020, one that renders old assumptions suspect and future outcomes more varied and uncertain. It’s likely that the transition to what’s next will be bumpy, which makes planning more effectively that much more strategic. Board International offers a platform that enables financial planning and analysis groups to forecast, plan, budget, analyze and report, using a... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management

Prophix’s Finance Platform Boosts Midsize Departments’ Effectiveness

Posted by Robert Kugel on 10 November 2022
Prophix offers cloud financial software for planning, budgeting, reporting and statutory financial consolidation designed to meet the requirements of midsize organizations and divisions of larger corporations. The company was one of the first to offer a planning platform capable of bringing together a company’s diverse planning processes and financial planning and budgeting. Its consolidation and... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Vertex Manages End-to-End Indirect Tax Compliance Worldwide

Posted by Robert Kugel on 08 November 2022
The worldwide market for software to manage indirect income taxes, which includes sales and use, goods and services (GST) and value-added taxes (VAT), has been growing because of recent compliance mandates, the growth of e-commerce as well as a desire to accelerate business processes by reducing friction in areas such as tax compliance, cutting administration costs and lowering risk. Vertex... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, ERP and Continuous Accounting

A New Approach to ERP for a More Effective Finance Department

Posted by Robert Kugel on 04 November 2022
ERP systems have been a fixture of organizational process management and record keeping for so long (more than three decades) that it is likely that few who use the software are aware that ERP is an acronym for Enterprise Resources Planning. Its smooth and uninterrupted functioning is essential to an organization’s accounting and finance processes. In manufacturing and distribution, ERP manages... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting

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