CODA Group, a finance and systems specialist headquartered in the United Kingdom, offers financial solutions that help companies grapple with international business issues such as language, currency, and compliance. Designed to be an "upgrade friendly system", CODA applications offer open and standards-based reporting tools. CODA's alliance with Microsoft Corp. has allowed it to deliver a range of financial and management accounting systems, and it has made several strategic acquisitions to further strengthen its position as a compliance solution.
Part Three of the Composing Collaborative Financial Applications, CODA series.
Among its recent endeavors, CODA has recently announced new set of financial planning and budgeting products: CODA s-Planning ("s" standing for "standard") and CODA c-Planning ("c" standing for "collaborative"), as well as a range of improved analysis and reporting tools, which will be detailed shortly. Nevertheless, to date, these corporate performance management (CPM) capabilities have targeted mainly existing customers of the CODA transactional systems. These users have focused on financial analytics, budgeting, and planning, either through Microsoft Excel integration within CODA c-Planning and CODA s-Planning, or through a partnership with Cognos for enterprise-level planning and budgeting. CODA's consolidation capabilities have traditionally been limited to the basic ones inherent in Coda-Financials. While these are adequate for simpler enterprises, the vendor has thus far been unable to successfully compete with offerings from specialists such as Hyperion Solutions, Geac (formerly Comshare), Applix, Longview, Outlooksoft, or Cartesis. Yet, the importance of these functionalities has been witnessed by Cognos' acquisition of Adaytum in 2003 and Business Objects' recent acquisition of the specialist SRC. See Financial Reporting, Planning, and Budgeting as Necessary Pieces of EPM for information on the functionality.
Thus, this merger deal should benefit both parties for many reasons. While Simple Concepts should get access to CODA's well developed global distribution channel and benefit from its financial stability, CODA should fill the financial consolidation gaps in its solution. Immediate cross-selling opportunities into CODA's install base will expand further as CODA translates OCRA into more languages. Not to mention, there are opportunities coming from OCRA's prior integration with SAP, Oracle, and other leading enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions. The acquisition also gives CODA a base for strengthening its direct sales operation and presence in Scandinavia.
The two recent acquisitions came at the heels of CODA's June 2005 launch of a suite of add-on applications that extends the range of planning and budgeting requirements: CODA s-Planning and CODA c-Planning . These could offer more benefits for CODA-Financials users. The suite includes Version 3 of the much talked about CODA-XL application. CODA-XL allows the fairly simple and secure output, manipulation, display, sharing, and input of CODA-Financials data within Microsoft Excel. s-Planning and c-Planning were seen to enable users to carry out a range of day-to-day tasks, such as producing and sharing statutory reports; processing expenses; or even developing and setting financial budgets using CODA-Financials alongside Excel and the other familiar Microsoft Office tools that most organizations probably already have in place. These new products were meant to make CODA-Financials the launch pad for a quicker and easier budget cycle. By combining the functionality and embedded control of CODA with the familiarity and convenience of Microsoft Excel, CODA s-Planning and CODA c-Planning should streamline the seeding, preparation, manipulation, and production of budgets, based on (or update) the user's CODA-Financials data. Moreover, CODA continues to develop its relationship with Cognos, offering the Cognos Enterprise Planning product where clients have wider enterprise requirements. The vendor also uses a mix of partnership and in-house development to address other CPM elements, such as activity-based costing (ABC), strategic planning and scenario analysis, shareholder value measurement, activity monitoring, information distribution, etc.
In addition to the "standard" budgeting and forecasting facilities provided by CODA s-Planning, users have the option to make their entire cycle more coordinated, efficient, and controlled by opting for the "collaborative" add-on of the CODA c-Planning product. This interfaces with the CODA-Control process management solution, adding a facility to publish budgets as CODA-Control web sites and tasks. This will keep all participants informed and aware of the input needed and when it is required. There are also audit trails and document history to support compliance reporting. CODA c-Planning aims to help organizations set financial budgets and collaboratively develop plans, which both reflect top-down business objectives and assess the need to account for bottom-up creativity and realities. For example, it will give budget managers visibility of process bottlenecks, including vacation and sick days of department managers, information on groups waiting for information from subsidiaries, and vice versa. Conversely, many other peer products focus purely on bringing together and reporting the figures in the system, and not on collaborative processes that are key to collecting and verifying the figures in the first place. The application's aggregation features often make the budgeting and planning process quicker, more dependable, and more predictable, giving financial professionals more time to analyze and consider their overall budget before making decisions crucial to the organization's mid-term plans.
Another analytic module worth mentioning is the CODA Collaborative Scorecard, which helps user organizations link corporate goals through group objectives and individual performance. Designed to be deployed to every desktop in the enterprise, the product supports multiple performance management methodologies. Generally speaking, scorecards assist organizations in monitoring their business performance beyond bottom-line results by tracking both financial and non-financial measures, and then reporting them in a graphical user interface (GUI). A key element is the way they cascade corporate goals through the organization, helping managers to set individual objectives, and then aggregate performance results back up through the company structure, so that management can review the contributions made by individuals and groups. This aligns corporate strategy with the activities of individuals within the organization.
Related to the above line of products is CODA Analytic Explorer, which is a business intelligence (BI) tool that allows CODA users to carry out multidimensional browsing across CODA-Mart and any other relational data source. It is a generic, on-line browsing tool with both two-dimensional and multidimensional browsing capabilities built in, and has a separately licensable cube builder that provides extra performance. As finance departments struggle to add value to their businesses, performance management enables them to deliver better decisions more efficiently. However, CPM is not about static plans that sit on the shelf and get dusted off at board meetings, but rather about continuously adjusting to the range of inputs that the business is constantly receiving. To that end, CODA Analytic Explorer provides the ability to investigate exceptions and trends quickly and easily, so that corrective actions can be taken, and forecasts and plans reviewed.
CODA-XL is now in its third release. It provides a two-way bridge between Excel, which is indisputably the most popular spreadsheet, and CODA's enterprise-level financial and CPM products. CODA-XL was launched in 2003 and brings the familiarity of the Excel interface to CODA-Financials. It should provide customers with several benefits, such as reduced training for end users of CODA-Financials during implementation. Other benefits typically include the elimination of transcription errors and file-handling overheads during the transfer of data between CODA-Financials and Excel. Thus, it may prevent the proverbial "islands of information," where local systems containing great value and insight are locked on individuals' desktops and personal computers and cannot be shared across the organization. However, unlike some similar products from competitors, CODA-XL goes beyond exploiting the familiarity of the user interface (UI) and makes use of the success that Excel enjoys as an informal business modeling and planning tool. It provides "What If?" scenario testing with the option of writing back from the spreadsheet to CODA-Financials. For example, the CODA Security Model is fully embedded within CODA-XL, thus ensuring consistent data security. This means that while add-ins to Excel deliver rich CODA functionality accessed directly from the Microsoft Office desktop, they must respect the same CODA security, validation, and business rules. For example, Excel formulas referencing live account balances are stored directly in CODA Database, with all necessary authorizations for users appearing down to the spreadsheet cell level. For more on the advantages and the inherent risks of Excel-based tools, see Vendors Harness Excel (and Office) to Win the Lower-end of Business Intelligence Market.
Within CODA e-Finance (a Web-based version of the product), all reports validated and cross-checked on-line to validate, to eliminate separate, unsecured reporting tables. "Lights out" scheduling and Web document publishing also eliminate manual intervention. In addition, the data manipulation capabilities of Excel mean that management accountants can build and model scenarios that can be tested against real data relatively quickly, which can be very useful for creditor and debtor management, customer profitability analysis, and ad hoc queries. Furthermore, US Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) submissions can be made through Microsoft Word documents with embedded "live" Excel documents that do not have cut and paste, export, and manipulation functions, which can introduce the potential for errors. Non-programmatic, wizard-driven automation of data entry with real time validation direct from Excel (transactions, allocations, masters, budgets, and forecasts) also eliminates open database connectivity (ODBC), direct structured query language (SQL) updates, relational database management systems (RDMBS) logons, etc., which are also points of risk.
Part Three of the Composing Collaborative Financial Applications, CODA series.
Among its recent endeavors, CODA has recently announced new set of financial planning and budgeting products: CODA s-Planning ("s" standing for "standard") and CODA c-Planning ("c" standing for "collaborative"), as well as a range of improved analysis and reporting tools, which will be detailed shortly. Nevertheless, to date, these corporate performance management (CPM) capabilities have targeted mainly existing customers of the CODA transactional systems. These users have focused on financial analytics, budgeting, and planning, either through Microsoft Excel integration within CODA c-Planning and CODA s-Planning, or through a partnership with Cognos for enterprise-level planning and budgeting. CODA's consolidation capabilities have traditionally been limited to the basic ones inherent in Coda-Financials. While these are adequate for simpler enterprises, the vendor has thus far been unable to successfully compete with offerings from specialists such as Hyperion Solutions, Geac (formerly Comshare), Applix, Longview, Outlooksoft, or Cartesis. Yet, the importance of these functionalities has been witnessed by Cognos' acquisition of Adaytum in 2003 and Business Objects' recent acquisition of the specialist SRC. See Financial Reporting, Planning, and Budgeting as Necessary Pieces of EPM for information on the functionality.
Thus, this merger deal should benefit both parties for many reasons. While Simple Concepts should get access to CODA's well developed global distribution channel and benefit from its financial stability, CODA should fill the financial consolidation gaps in its solution. Immediate cross-selling opportunities into CODA's install base will expand further as CODA translates OCRA into more languages. Not to mention, there are opportunities coming from OCRA's prior integration with SAP, Oracle, and other leading enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions. The acquisition also gives CODA a base for strengthening its direct sales operation and presence in Scandinavia.
The two recent acquisitions came at the heels of CODA's June 2005 launch of a suite of add-on applications that extends the range of planning and budgeting requirements: CODA s-Planning and CODA c-Planning . These could offer more benefits for CODA-Financials users. The suite includes Version 3 of the much talked about CODA-XL application. CODA-XL allows the fairly simple and secure output, manipulation, display, sharing, and input of CODA-Financials data within Microsoft Excel. s-Planning and c-Planning were seen to enable users to carry out a range of day-to-day tasks, such as producing and sharing statutory reports; processing expenses; or even developing and setting financial budgets using CODA-Financials alongside Excel and the other familiar Microsoft Office tools that most organizations probably already have in place. These new products were meant to make CODA-Financials the launch pad for a quicker and easier budget cycle. By combining the functionality and embedded control of CODA with the familiarity and convenience of Microsoft Excel, CODA s-Planning and CODA c-Planning should streamline the seeding, preparation, manipulation, and production of budgets, based on (or update) the user's CODA-Financials data. Moreover, CODA continues to develop its relationship with Cognos, offering the Cognos Enterprise Planning product where clients have wider enterprise requirements. The vendor also uses a mix of partnership and in-house development to address other CPM elements, such as activity-based costing (ABC), strategic planning and scenario analysis, shareholder value measurement, activity monitoring, information distribution, etc.
In addition to the "standard" budgeting and forecasting facilities provided by CODA s-Planning, users have the option to make their entire cycle more coordinated, efficient, and controlled by opting for the "collaborative" add-on of the CODA c-Planning product. This interfaces with the CODA-Control process management solution, adding a facility to publish budgets as CODA-Control web sites and tasks. This will keep all participants informed and aware of the input needed and when it is required. There are also audit trails and document history to support compliance reporting. CODA c-Planning aims to help organizations set financial budgets and collaboratively develop plans, which both reflect top-down business objectives and assess the need to account for bottom-up creativity and realities. For example, it will give budget managers visibility of process bottlenecks, including vacation and sick days of department managers, information on groups waiting for information from subsidiaries, and vice versa. Conversely, many other peer products focus purely on bringing together and reporting the figures in the system, and not on collaborative processes that are key to collecting and verifying the figures in the first place. The application's aggregation features often make the budgeting and planning process quicker, more dependable, and more predictable, giving financial professionals more time to analyze and consider their overall budget before making decisions crucial to the organization's mid-term plans.
Another analytic module worth mentioning is the CODA Collaborative Scorecard, which helps user organizations link corporate goals through group objectives and individual performance. Designed to be deployed to every desktop in the enterprise, the product supports multiple performance management methodologies. Generally speaking, scorecards assist organizations in monitoring their business performance beyond bottom-line results by tracking both financial and non-financial measures, and then reporting them in a graphical user interface (GUI). A key element is the way they cascade corporate goals through the organization, helping managers to set individual objectives, and then aggregate performance results back up through the company structure, so that management can review the contributions made by individuals and groups. This aligns corporate strategy with the activities of individuals within the organization.
Related to the above line of products is CODA Analytic Explorer, which is a business intelligence (BI) tool that allows CODA users to carry out multidimensional browsing across CODA-Mart and any other relational data source. It is a generic, on-line browsing tool with both two-dimensional and multidimensional browsing capabilities built in, and has a separately licensable cube builder that provides extra performance. As finance departments struggle to add value to their businesses, performance management enables them to deliver better decisions more efficiently. However, CPM is not about static plans that sit on the shelf and get dusted off at board meetings, but rather about continuously adjusting to the range of inputs that the business is constantly receiving. To that end, CODA Analytic Explorer provides the ability to investigate exceptions and trends quickly and easily, so that corrective actions can be taken, and forecasts and plans reviewed.
CODA-XL is now in its third release. It provides a two-way bridge between Excel, which is indisputably the most popular spreadsheet, and CODA's enterprise-level financial and CPM products. CODA-XL was launched in 2003 and brings the familiarity of the Excel interface to CODA-Financials. It should provide customers with several benefits, such as reduced training for end users of CODA-Financials during implementation. Other benefits typically include the elimination of transcription errors and file-handling overheads during the transfer of data between CODA-Financials and Excel. Thus, it may prevent the proverbial "islands of information," where local systems containing great value and insight are locked on individuals' desktops and personal computers and cannot be shared across the organization. However, unlike some similar products from competitors, CODA-XL goes beyond exploiting the familiarity of the user interface (UI) and makes use of the success that Excel enjoys as an informal business modeling and planning tool. It provides "What If?" scenario testing with the option of writing back from the spreadsheet to CODA-Financials. For example, the CODA Security Model is fully embedded within CODA-XL, thus ensuring consistent data security. This means that while add-ins to Excel deliver rich CODA functionality accessed directly from the Microsoft Office desktop, they must respect the same CODA security, validation, and business rules. For example, Excel formulas referencing live account balances are stored directly in CODA Database, with all necessary authorizations for users appearing down to the spreadsheet cell level. For more on the advantages and the inherent risks of Excel-based tools, see Vendors Harness Excel (and Office) to Win the Lower-end of Business Intelligence Market.
Within CODA e-Finance (a Web-based version of the product), all reports validated and cross-checked on-line to validate, to eliminate separate, unsecured reporting tables. "Lights out" scheduling and Web document publishing also eliminate manual intervention. In addition, the data manipulation capabilities of Excel mean that management accountants can build and model scenarios that can be tested against real data relatively quickly, which can be very useful for creditor and debtor management, customer profitability analysis, and ad hoc queries. Furthermore, US Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) submissions can be made through Microsoft Word documents with embedded "live" Excel documents that do not have cut and paste, export, and manipulation functions, which can introduce the potential for errors. Non-programmatic, wizard-driven automation of data entry with real time validation direct from Excel (transactions, allocations, masters, budgets, and forecasts) also eliminates open database connectivity (ODBC), direct structured query language (SQL) updates, relational database management systems (RDMBS) logons, etc., which are also points of risk.
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