A powerful financial software suite that promises to revolutionise the way financial managers and accountants use spreadsheets was launched to the South African financial community at a glittering champagne and oyster breakfast in Johannesburg.
Timeline Analyst is a software application, which addresses the issues associated with financial reporting, budgeting, and analysis and runs in a client/server environment. It acts as a link between the front and back office systems, allowing organisations to continue using their existing systems to store financial data, as well as producing reports from the stored information through Microsoft Excel. It completely eliminates the need to re-key data and maintain spreadsheets.
Timeline allows financial information to be distributed throughout an organisation, regardless of origin, as its reporting tools interface to any/all underlying systems.
Noel Lavery, sales director of Timeline Europe told the gathering that it is their intention to make Timeline Analyst the de facto standard for financial reporting worldwide. He also announced an aggressive initial pricing structure to support the product in this country.
"We want to replicate the successes we`ve had with our products elsewhere in the world here in South Africa, " he said.
Lavery stressed that the product represented mainstream technology: "We are in partnership with one of the world`s largest software companies, Microsoft, in developing the product, and it will be Windows 98 compliant."
Timeline Europe Ltd has appointed Harvey Jones Systems (Pty) Ltd as the official Southern African distributor for the Timeline range of financial reporting software products. The company has, in turn, appointed Brainware, which was listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange last month, as an official re-seller.
"Timeline`s products provide an efficient way of distributing business information to the desktop," says Keith Jones, managing director of Harvey Jones Systems.
"Many large organisations have made a significant investment in powerful back office systems, but are still unable to easily extract the information they need. Recent research in the UK indicated that 40 percent of accountants are still re-keying data from accounting packages which cannot produce reports in the formats required by management and regulatory authorities. In addition, two thirds of all the decisions to replace accounting software are taken because existing systems have inadequate reporting facilities and the majority of financial reports are processed in spreadsheet format.
"The problem is that many of today`s desktop tools cannot directly access the wealth of data in transaction systems," he says.
"Timeline`s Microsoft-based client/server application easily and intelligently links the Microsoft desktop to any financial transaction-processing system, and provides end-users with powerful reporting analytical capabilities," says Jones. "It therefore optimises the investment that organisations have made in underlying systems."
South African corporations have a mix of financial systems. For example, they may boast state-of-the-art packages together with a monolithic general ledger system. Reporting can only be achieved using the data contained in all these heterogeneous systems. Instead of solving the problems associated with this by changing all the underlying systems, companies can now simply invest in the Timeline products and gain a new front-end to manage the reporting.
They enable users to design and run their own reports when they need them within minutes. The need to maintain spreadsheets is eliminated as Timeline Analyst controls the flow of data from underlying systems to the Excel spreadsheet.
Timeline has also launched an Analyst Author-training programme, intended to let users create business-specific report templates, which once authored, are maintenance-free. An accountant with retail clients will, for example, be able to create a specific report templates system that automates much of the reporting they do for clients in this industry sector.
Auditors have welcomed the technology because it enables them to write their own queries, and they no longer have to rely on reports written for them.
A number of large established businesses have adopted Timeline`s technology to gain a strategic advantage in financial reporting. In the UK, these include The Inland Revenue, ABSA Bank, Lloyds of London, Standard Chartered Bank and Virgin Atlantic.
The technology also has Microsoft`s stamp of approval. The company has licensed the technology and has launched Microsoft Small Business Financial Manager, which is based on the subset of Timeline Analyst. In the UK, USA and Canada the SBFM is bundled with Office 97.
"Timeline is very excited about entering the South African market, where it sees huge potential," says John Walder, Channels Manager, Timeline Europe Ltd. "And we are delighted to be in partnership with Brainware, which boasts an impressive client base and excellent implementation and consulting skills."
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