Real Insight and In-Depth Analytics: The Need for Financial Analytics Software

Introduction

Financial information is among the essential requirements that are needed to give a comprehensive real insight and in-depth analytics. In a growing competitive environment, government ministries require more than just accurate reports and financial statements; they need financial analytics software that is trustworthy (Cohen & Kaimenaki, 2015). A standard reporting cycle that takes anywhere between five and fifteen days will always give the finance personnel a rough time to give their colleagues real value-added financial analysis and actionable insight. The main focus of this paper is to review the role of financial analytics system that government ministries should adopt to enable them to leverage on their financial health.

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Hyperion Financial Management

The Hyperion Financial Management System refers to financial reporting and consolidating software that is developed with advanced high-level web technologies. It is mainly designed to be maintained and used by the team of finance (Davis, 2016). The software gives the financial software the capability to swiftly consolidate and report financial results, reduce the compliance cost, deliver confidence in the financial results, and the international regulatory requirements. The Hyperion Financial Management system can quickly realize new benefits faster with packaged organizational reporting functionality (Fugere, 2016). Secondly, it can quickly help in conducting a comprehensive analysis of operational metrics and analytical performance. Next, it can make discoveries on new profitability sources and cash flow by company, brand, products, and customer segments. Finally, the system has the ability to conduct an in-depth analysis of the enterprise performance management applications as dictated by needs and budgets.

PrevisionEPM

The PrevisionEPM is enterprise-level performance management system that is capable of assisting users in keeping track of key performance indicators to boost performance. The performance management solution can help the management and executives to discover all the unknown information that is hidden is other systems to develop and execute financial plans that can easily be customized, configured and managed (Gai, Jenkinson, & Kapadia, 2017). The PrevisionEPM comes with business analytics, planning, and budgeting, reporting custom PrevisionEPM solution features, and executive dashboards (Helfert, 2014). Operational reporting provides multiple currency support, financial reporting, key performance indicator, and labor productivity. The budgeting and planning tool comes with capital planning, enterprise budgeting, rolling budget features, and payroll planning (Lothian, 2019). The business analytics sections of the PrevisionEPM can assist users in making informed decisions, control labor, monitor employee costs, and analyze productivity. The part of the executive dashboard provides dashboard report, financial benchmark report, customer profitability, key performance indicator, and sales trend analysis features (Lothian, 2019). Other standard features of the system are an audit trail, multi-company support, cash management, and capital asset planning. It is also time and data agnostic and only requires eight weeks to implement.

Tableau

Tableau is one of the fastest and powerful data visualization tool used in the financial Business Intelligence industry. It assists in the transformation of raw data into a format that is easily understandable. Analysis of data is very fast in Tableau, and the kind of visualization that is created is in worksheet and dashboard forms. Using Tableau, the data generated are represented in a way that can be easily understood by professionals at any levels within an organization.

Furthermore, Tableau can allow users who are non-technical to create a customized dashboard that suits their own needs. The most features that make Tableau analytics system outstanding is that it permits data blending, the collaboration of data, and real-time analysis. Furthermore, its simplicity to use by any non-technical staff makes it most suitable for usage in the government ministries.

Workiva

Workiva is one of the leading providers of reporting and compliance solutions. As stipulated in their website, working connects data directly from the source to deliver greater accuracy and numbers to aid decision-making processes (Lothian, 2019). The software automates data from diverse systems, thus creating investor-friendly reports and presentations; that is contextualized and can perform analysis system. Workiva is one of the most popular financial analytics systems, with a diverse client base, including fortune 500 companies. It is a versatile and practical platform that allows users to create different types of marketing reports according to the end-users' needs (Milligan, 2016). It provides an excellent management platform that enables a person to effectively manage documents, report any issues, and create a working environment. The intuitive interface allows a user to intuitively and quickly update any reports.

Money

Emoney is comprehensive financial planning software that empowers financial planners to meet planning needs for their clients. The software can be used for planning, aggregation, and tracking goals, even assisting with budgeting. It is versatile software with a great client-facing solution, providing ease of access for both advisors and clients (Milligan, 2016). The storage feature, known as vault allows its clients to integrate financial statements to a centralized location for organization and business. Therefore, the planning system can be combined with the client management platform, thus providing easy access. A firm can use it to aggregate and analyze client data, thus producing financial planning ideas for clients (Stirrup, & Oliva Ramos, 2014). It also provides a one-stop shopping approach that aggregates all the clients' financial information to help come up with a plan that fits their needs and accomplishes their goals. It also allows clients to track their expenses, set goals, and create budgets.

FactSet

This software provides quality content, analytics, and flexible technology to end-users, to in aid decision-making processes. Designed for most business organizations, the software grants business organizations the edge to perform with credible insights, workflow structure, and leading industry support from dedicated specialists (Tsay, 2017). The organization of the FactSet software makes its platforms very easy to navigate. For instance, the calendar tab helps the end-user organize activities effectively. The application is also very rapid and reliable in spite of the multiple navigations and workflows. In addition to the fact that FactSet has both real-time and historical data on cashflows, attaching, or removing data on the platform is also straightforward (Weaver, 2018). FactSet also has an excellent support function; it is easy to chat with any of its representatives in case of any difficulties or challenges faced. These features, therefore, make this analytics software suitable for use for most government ministries.

The financial analytics systems come with a lot of benefits to the business organizations that adopt them. They relieve the financial staff of the pain and stress that they might undergo through in analyzing a large amount of data to come up with actionable value-added information (Cohen & Kaimenaki, 2015). The most common financial analytics systems that this paper recommends for government ministries include Hyperion Financial Management, PrevisionEPM, Tableau, Workiva, Emoney, and FactSet (Milligan, 2016). These systems come with sophisticated capabilities such as financial forecasting, customer profitability, financial benchmark, and key performance indicator. These roles make them suitable for adoption by the government ministries.

References

Cohen, S., & Kaimenaki, E. (2015). Cost accounting systems structure and information quality properties: an empirical analysis. Journal Of Applied Accounting Research, 12(1), 5-25. doi: 10.1108/09675421111130586

Davis, C. (2016). Financial analysis, 35(10), 978-978. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0560.2008.01157.x

Fugere, P. (2016). Oracle Hyperion financial management tips & techniques (3rd ed., p. 433). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Gai, P., Jenkinson, N., & Kapadia, S. (2017). Systemic risk in modern financial systems: analytics and policy design. The Journal Of Risk Finance, 8(2), 156-165. doi: 10.1108/15265940710732387

Helfert, E. (2014). Techniques of financial analysis (4th ed., p. 600). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Lothian, A. (2019). Visual Analytics with Tableau (6th ed., p. 288). Wiley & Sons Canada, Limited, John.

Milligan, J. (2016). Learning Tableau 10 (4th ed., p. 432). Birmingham: Packt.

Stirrup, J., & Oliva Ramos, R (2014). Advanced analytics with R and Tableau (2nd ed., p. 546). BirmingHam: Packt Publishing.

Tsay, R. (2017). An introduction to the analysis of financial data with R (2nd ed., p. 416). Hoboken, N.J: Wiley.

Weaver, S. (2018). The essentials of financial analysis (3rd ed., p. 434). New York: McGraw-Hill.