The average company invests far too much time in the simple task of collecting data and reporting information. The research shows that most of the controllers work time is consumed by collecting and validating data and only little time remains for analysis. The reason is that most of global companies use Excel almost exclusively as a planning tool. Often, that means Finance Managers spend weeks attempting to consolidate hundreds of spreadsheets with inconsistent data, altered formulas and extra rows added by other managers. It is such a huge task that there is little time left for analysis or optimization of resource allocation.

Could it be changed?

Yes!... by EURECA!

EURECA system is designed for enterprises who already possess transactional systems and who have already gathered large amounts of various data concerning costs, production and sales. It is dedicated to companies who wish to improve their planning process and develop the controlling functions which are related to multidimensional analysis of planned and actual data.

EURECA joins:

• the functionality of the Data Warehouse it can easily integrate with already existing systems and does not require changes in IT structure;
• flexibility and simplicity of Excel owing to the MS EXCEL components that are used in the EURECA system, with basic training, users can easily operate the system.

EURECA eliminates necessity of consolidating spreadsheets into one budget. Budgets created by particular managers are saved to the system database at once and can be used by financial controllers at the same time. The system is adapted to be used in organisations that are territorially diffused (such as banks, insurance agencies or retailers) users may monitor planned and actual data as well as input planned data through www.

Such tools are available. All over the world they are called: Business Performance Management (BPM). Most innovative companies are using them. EURECA is such a system, which we want to present You. In Poland we are cooperating with companies like: Toyota Motor Manufacturing Poland, Torfarm SA, ThyssenKrupp Energostal, ENEA SA, Basell Orlen Polyolefins, Koelner SA, or Alfa Elektro.

Planning with EURECA

EURECA assures efficient and ergonomic planning processes. Multidimensional information is input just once and without a risk of committing an error by e.g. repetitions, planning the same values by various persons in various manners, inconsistency of data etc. Owing to the OLAP technology (On-line Analytical Processing), the EURECA system is based on, it is possible to process and analyse multidimensional data rapidly and efficiently.
This is an important difference in comparison to transactional systems optimized to efficient realization recording and reading data operations (related with adding new documents). Those systems do not deal with doing reports and converting quantity of data.

Plans can be presented in selected time periods - monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or annually, according to user needs. Useful tool for presenting plans is 'plan tree' – it enables to intuitively move on sophisticated structure of plans, built in many decisional dimensions. Particular elements of the tree may occur many times in different places – e.g. sale quantity of product X in region Y, in distribution channel Z of a manager Q is simultaneously viewed in many sections, by regions, products distribution channels etc. The foreign-language name can appear in additional fields describing every plan. It is very useful especially for companies with international management.

There may be relations between certain plans – they are defined at the stage of implementation. It enables building financial model of the company that reflects its activity.
Thanks to those relations it is possible to observe i.a. the influence of data planned on the balance sheet, profit and loss accounts, cash flow etc. An answer for a question: "How much cash will be generated if in the second quarter we raise the price in the segment of retailers in south region to maintain present sales level?" – doesn't make a problem.
'Tree structure' of plans enables also checking the influence of certain area of activity onto the financial situation of a company. In easy way it is possible to get the information about e.g. gross margin that was made by particular assortment group/distribution channel/region.

Plan can be related to the responsibility structure in the company – every plan has an assigned person responsible for its realization. This way EURECA can become a tool helpful in verifying job done by managers.

Plan structure can be multi-year – that enables to compare data planned from different periods. The budget of a company may consist of several sub budgets input by managers using the internet browser.

The number of possible plan versions is practically unlimited. It means, that it is possible to create plans including pessimistic, realistic or optimistic sequence.

Factors that influence the number of plan versions depend on the type of the company. The EURECA system doesn't make any obstacles in this case. There are built-in mechanisms that can copy budget version corrected by ratios – it facilitates the processes of multi-version planning.

Multidimensional data analysis

This module of the EURECA system offers various analyses concerning planned and actual data. It can be used independently on the budgeting module.
Many users need proficient tool for analysing phenomena that occur in the company that will allow them to gain insight into information necessary in management. The demand for this type of information is huge.

Lots of questions that usually occur in typical company are very difficult to answer.
"Which product has the biggest participation in EBIT? Are they sold at the same level in every region or period? Which selling teams make best sales? Which clients buy them in greatest amounts?
What influences most on their production cost? How much we spend on their promotion in comparison with other products? Who are our top 10 suppliers? What is the influence of our top 10 products on EBIT? What our general costs consist of? Which component mostly influences company's profit and who manages it?"

This kind of questions are asked by management of almost every company. Usually systems store large amount of data but they have no tool for turning them into useful information and knowledge. The EURECA system fulfils the gap in the transactional system of the company.

Owing to the technology used in EURECA, it is possible to make any filters and analyses we wish. It is fascinating to see how synthetic information about e.g. level of sales can be expanded into structures by regions, assortment groups, sellers, sellers and assortment groups, assortment groups and distribution channels etc. Thanks to the system, stored data can present the mode of the company's activity, its strengths and weaknesses, causes of failure and success etc.

EURECA enables also, important for managers, analysis „from total to detail". It is possible to define hierarchy of dimensions e.g. "index – product – assortment – category" or "unit
- department - division". Owing to that during the analysis of data we can see its structure
and relations on every level. According to needs it is possible to analyse even the most detailed data.

The Managers Desktops
In specific situations the standard form of presentations data is not sufficient method for correct interpretations of results. In this way EURECA is equipped with a specific tool – Managers Desktops. They actually help in analysis process or to estimate fulfilment of individual budgets.
Thanks to Managers Desktops a Financial Controller can share with managers their data in easy and readable graphic form.

Using Managers Desktops You can quickly define range and way of presentations data about realisations of individual budgets. During projecting a Desktop for individual users You can also evaluate analysis results.
Range of undergoing data analysis helps to identify analysed situations as unsatisfactory, average results and very good results.

Using Desktops managers responsible for execution their budgets can observe all their data with an easy to interpret graphic form.
The Desktops can have various forms. It can be indicators or clocks similar to cars desktops, imitations of road signalisations, smiling or sad icons etc. Thanks to simple imaging the results we can observe when individual position in our budget reach desirable or bad values.
Further more users of Managers Desktops can at any moment reach particular report. In this report they can observe numbers and charts presenting all of information about an interesting phenomenon.

AD-HOC queries
Ad hoc queries are a very useful tool in searching for non-typical information. We usually know which products have the best sales. But are they sold at the same level in every region?
What is the sales in particular distribution channels or groups of clients? Are there any sellers that can bring good results in sales of not so popular products? If so, how they do that? If we know answers for such questions, the risk of losing market opportunities is reduced.
Very important feature of the ad hoc queries module is its intuitive and user-friendly interface. User employs language very close to natural – he doesn't have to waste time on learning ad hoc query language. Once created queries can be saved and used again, also by other users.

Local Cubes
Interesting functionality of analytical part of EURECA is possibility of making Local Cubes. They are parts of OLAP cubes (multidimensional database). They contain information e.g.: about costs, incomes, share of markets, storage states etc.
Why do we create the Local Cubes? The reason is that we do not always want to share data accumulate in Data Warehouse with every participant of decision taking process. Its enough for some users of EURECA to have possibility only to analyse this information which concerns their responsibility area. The Local Cubes are defined by EURECA's administrator. They save defined information and share them with individual user without necessity of permanent connection with EURECA's base.
All of defined cubes are located in the repository on server. User can download them on her / his computer e.g.: by web site and than on his basis do various analysis. Users who have access to define range of data have possibility to connect with the Local Cube also by EURECA's client application.

Drill – Through analysis
The Drill – Through mechanism allows presentation of individual components of values. It allows drilling in details and knows actual reasons for observing state of matters.

EURECA OFFLINE
Offline EURECA's module served work with control analysis and ad – hoc analysis. Its possible because we can download and save Local Cubes on a drive. There is no necessity to connect with SQL server or OLAP cubes.
There are two modules of EURECA's Off – line:

• Control boards
• Ad – hoc questions

To use this functionality its enough to choose suitable module, factor an application and download Local Cubes. Then You can do Your analysis and after that save them in a multi – hierarchy tree form.

Work efficiency

Integration with MS Office and other tools:

.NET technology by Microsoft used in the EURECA system enables its integration with MS Office. Microsoft Excel is the most common tool used by financial controllers. It has many advantages – it is easy in use, has relatively rich functionality and rich charts/reports wizard. However, it has also many limits and disadvantages related to troublesome and time-consuming loading with actual data. Besides, problems occur with multi-access, lack of permission management or impossible saving or monitoring the budget realization etc.
Reasonable solution of the problem is providing user of the EURECA system with possibility of exporting data to Excel spreadsheet. All diagrams created in the system can be easily placed in the Microsoft PowerPoint presentations. It reduces time dedicated for preparation of financial/economical data presentation for the management. EURECA is available for users at any time or place. By using browser, it provides access by Internet as well as intranet. Apart from support in controlling, the EURECA system possesses many functions that decide about high efficiency of work. The main advantages are:

Definability of views
User can easily define the view, its information content and colours. Particular windows can be moved according to needs and currently executed tasks. The system provides users with function of "colour code" type that enables marking out most important information on the screen.

Drag & drop mechanisms Automation of calculations
Most operations don't require input by using keyboard. It accelerates defining and running queries. Every time formulas like <sales_value>- <direct_costs>=<profit_margin_I>
are defined, there is no need for manual input of calculated values, which can increase the risk of committing an error. The formulas are dragged and dropped in the proper place by means of mouse.

Drill down mechanisms
The "drill down" mechanisms are built-in in the pivot tables and multidimensional diagrams.
They provide presentation of components of particular parts of the pie chart viewed on the screen. Thanks to that it is possible to drill down the details and find the causes of observed state.
The data on analyzed budget can be seen at the screen any time the user wants and with an access to important information on the plan, he works with.

Diagrams
The information processed in the EURECA system can be immediately presented in graphical form. The user can individually decide the type of diagram and its information content.
Thanks to the integration with Excel, it is possible to use the same types of diagrams as in Excel with all possibilities of formatting. It is also possible to do the drill down operation on the multidimensional data - that enables to do the analyses of all types of data.

Technology

TECHNOLOGY
The EURECA system has been created based on .NET technology by Microsoft as well as the following components:

• relational databases Microsoft SQL 2000, 2005, 2008
• multidimensional databases Microsoft OLAP and Microsoft Analysis Services
  tools for creating user's graphical interface – Microsoft Visual Studio .NET
• Reporting Services tool (elements of Database) applied for creation of prints.

The additional advantage of the technology is relatively cheap hardware/software environment, necessary for functioning of the system.
Thanks to Microsoft .NET, EURECA provides with high speed of activity, has reasonable hardware requirements and offers a large range of functionality at a low cost.

A R C H I T E C T U R E
EURECA consists of the following components:

• business intelligence level based on data warehouse
• tools responsible for data warehouse and multidimensional structures creation
• tools that are used to extract, transform and load data from transactional systems
  (Data Transformation Services - DTS and tables of data base in Microsoft SQL Server)
• the presentation level with graphic user interface.

Data may be stored in various source systems that may consist of standard databases and systems. DTS gathers and transforms data from the various source systems into a data warehouse (typically Microsoft SQL Server). SQL Server Analysis services are employed to build OLAP Cubes. Cubes contain aggregated data that may be queried. This allows users to view data in ways that makes it easier to ask if the business is profitable today and why. Various query, reporting, and analysis tools allow end users to analyze data in a variety of ways to transform the collected data into knowledge. EURECA also provides a platform for analysis reports as well as related documents important to a business.

Data may be stored in various source systems that may consist of standard databases and systems. DTS gathers and transforms data from the various source systems into a data warehouse (typically Microsoft SQL Server). SQL Server Analysis services are employed to build OLAP Cubes. Cubes contain aggregated data that may be queried. This allows users to view data in ways that makes it easier to ask if the business is profitable today and why. Various query, reporting, and analysis tools allow end users to analyze data in a variety of ways to transform the collected data into knowledge. EURECA also provides a platform for analysis reports as well as related documents important to a business.

EURECA is a very flexible and opened solution. Flexibility in architecture allows the application to be tailored to the interface, scalability, and reporting needs of the client. Openness ensures that the power of the application can be exploited through well defined and accessible interfaces. Our approach allows adopting EURECA at company's own pace – the
system can grow with it as the performance management goals are defined.