ALCHEMEX makes 'most sought-after business software today' (Gartner) affordable to SMEs

The international headlines are dominated by job slashing in a landscape of corporate desperation to survive. How relevant are all the predictions of calamity from current doomsayers for South African small to mid-size businesses? How can business owners protect their businesses against losses and widespread uncertainty?

Many companies are dealing with the current market volatility by reducing both expenses and staff complements. Smart companies, however, are discovering the opportunity that exists in business intelligence (BI), which is fast becoming a necessity for gaining and maintaining a competitive advantage because it provides insight into a company's business that other business applications cannot.

Now more than ever, business owners and managers are aware of the need to monitor costs closely and ensure they know exactly which products/services are profitable in their business to ensure they remain competitive, stay in business, and identify opportunities for growth.

Ensuring decisions are made based on accurate, accessible and timeous financial information will allow smart businesses to not only survive but flourish in times of economic instability. Business intelligence is no longer a nice to have, but an absolute must.

The need for small and mid-size businesses to have accurate and up-to-date essential reports at their fingertips is no different to their bigger counterparts in the commercial world. In the absence of large IT budgets and specialised BI staff, however, an affordable solution that offers immediate return on investment is crucial.

And even more appropriate for a small to mid-size business is BI in Excel. Excel is a powerful decision support tool when integrated with the right applications and tools and when used within a structured framework. In today's environment the ability to leverage existing technology is important. Leveraging it to solve immediate business problems and improve financial data management to making critical business decisions is paramount. Automating spreadsheets and producing meaningful reports to maximise the value of existing investments and gain insight into a business results in time-savings and increased productivity that go a long way to reducing the load on the business owner, financial accountant or bookkeeper.

ALCHEMEX provides reporting solutions that interact with a company's accounting system and deliver automated financial and business management reports off a company's own data and in a familiar Excel format. This functionality fills the gap that most accounting applications cannot - the extraction of data from the accounting package into a pre-formatted Excel report automatically and on demand - thus eliminating manual report preparation and repetitive data extracts. Users can then view, manipulate and analyse trusted information in the familiar environment of Excel. ALCHEMEX therefore delivers two key elements for SMEs: (1) a low-cost integration into existing IT infrastructure, and (2) business intelligence technology that is easy and accessible.

The software provides connectors and report templates for most leading accounting and payroll packages, in some instances being a preferred 'add-on' reporting solution, such as for Accpac, while in other cases being the integrated BI tool, such as for Pastel Partner and Pastel Evolution (where it is packaged as the Business Intelligence Centre) and VIP Payroll (where it is packaged as the Business Intelligence Manager).

ALCHEMEX has bundled its core software solutions into three stacks to offer small to mid-size businesses simple, accessible BI that provides excellent value.

ALCHEMEX Smart Reporting automates monthly management packs and other financial, payroll, sales, inventory and trend analysis reports. Use of the software will minimise manual, repetitive work in Excel, and prevent the accumulation of critical data in personal spreadsheets. The data resides in a secure source and feeds into pre-formatted Excel Income Statement and Balance Sheet reports upon request, leaving the user with little or no work to do to get the required results. High level summaries, account groupings and even detailed transactions can be accessed immediately, for both the current and prior year, in different views as determined by the user, in the Excel report. ALCHEMEX Smart Reporting also provides the ability to consolidate data from multiple disparate sources, eg, across multiple companies or divisions, in a dashboard style view.

This graphical representation of data in Excel is particularly useful for providing management and executives with an overview of the business to identify trends. Drill down capabilities allow for transaction details to be viewed at the click of a mouse.

Other ALCHEMEX solutions include ALCHEMEX Analytics for multi-dimensional data analysis via OLAP cubes and ALCHEMEX Web Reporting for secure real-time reporting via a Web browser into Excel, HTML or PDF.

With ALCHEMEX, business decision-makers are put in a position to obtain immediate access to trusted reports that provide real-time insight into their businesses.

Useful information when you want it, in a format you can use.

And as you create the necessary efficiencies and make decisions based on sound information presented in a useful and meaningful way, so can you identify new areas of opportunity and not only weather the storm in the economy, but flourish.

Visit http://www.alchemex.com for free 30-day trial software or e-mail sales@alchemex.com for further information and pricing and see not only how Alchemex has made BI (the “most sought after business software today” according to Gartner) affordable to SMEs, but what the benefits of creating efficiencies and automation will do for your business!