This article is all about your financial reporting options for Professional Services organizations relying on Microsoft Dynamics AX for analytics and data management.
In the modern business culture, perhaps more so for Professional Services teams, a powerful, dynamic financial reporting solution is essential to understanding how you’re doing in today’s marketplace, economy, and your specific industry – so you can make strong decisions that develop your business and your brand. This article will zoom in on the top financial reporting tools today, focusing on the best features and functionalities, so you can choose wisely when shopping for a solution to expand your Professional Services team’s Microsoft Dynamics AX processes.
Independent software vendor (ISV) solutions usually query financial data from your accounting system and/or other data sources, whether through a from Microsoft Dynamics AX or . Like most enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, AX come equipped with a built-in report writer, but a lot of Professional Services organizations are going with an ISV reporting software due to the ease of use paired with effective reporting capabilities that transcends the native reporting functionality. With the top ISV tools, you can design reusable report templates, which enables business end users to manage and analyze their own information, producing analytics for decision-makers. Having recently chatted with multiple accounting professionals at conferences at the end of last year, we talked about “free” options versus ISV products. Financial reporting is, however, such a vital process that you have to pinpoint you’re your organization specifically needs and how a solution fits into your BI strategy. Things to consider when shopping around: data integration options, platform choices (Excel, Web, and/or proprietary), and ease of use, among other aspects.
As the arguable foundation to financial reporting, it makes sense to start with data integrations. Does your team require real-time analyses that can only really be achieved through a direct integration from Microsoft Dynamics AX? Or do you want to query data from a BI data store, like an online analytical processing (OLAP) cube or a data warehouse, for a higher performance? Live integrations pull data directly from AX without replicating company info to a warehouse or cube for up-to-the-minute financial reports. BI data stores, whether a cube, a mart, or a warehouse, are an additional cost, but some storage solutions allow you to house multiple types of data in one place. That said, if your organization has multiple Dynamics AX users that might be simultaneously pulling substantial data sets, it slow down the AX server.
To continue learning more about Financial Reporting for Professional Services with Dynamics AX, read the rest of this article .
By Solver, Inc.
