March 2009 Monarch Report eNewsletter [Archive]

Mike Urbonas

March 26th, 2009, 04:36 PM

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=600 align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><DIV align=center><A name=topofpage></A></DIV></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> <TABLE height=70 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=600 align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><IMG src="http://www.monarchforums.com/images/Monarch_Report-New_Header.jpg" width=600></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE height=554 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=600 align=center bgColor=#fffbd0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top><TABLE height=520 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=600 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=368 bgColor=#fffbd1><TABLE height=302 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=330 align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top> March 2009 The Monarch Report informs users of our Monarch-powered solutions of the latest product news, tips, user stories, upcoming events and more. This newsletter is sent to our online subscribers and those who have purchased or expressed interest in Datawatch products. Final Days for Monarch V10 Special Upgrade Offers, Ending March 31, 2009! Everyone is under pressure to do more with less. We're doing our part to help by getting the power of Monarch V10 into your hands now with generous pricing! Users of Monarch V7 and earlier have one last chance to step up to Monarch V10 at low upgrade pricing! <a href="http://www.monarchforums.com/images/Monarch-V7-and-Earlier-to-V10-Upgrade.htm" target="_blank">Complete details here.</a> Monarch V8 users can upgrade to Monarch V10 at volume discounts! <a href="http://www.monarchforums.com/images/Monarch-V8-to-V10-Upgrade.htm" target="_blank">Complete details here.</a> Don't delay, these offers end March 31, 2009. In this Issue... (1) Monarch Builds Strong Internal Audit Practices for Global Contracting and Manufacturing Firm. Datawatch recently spoke with a senior internal audit executive for a leading building materials manufacturer and contractor based in North America. The company uses Monarch extensively in the field to quickly and easily ensure global financial reporting in line with GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles), plus perform account reconciliations, exception reporting and more. "I use Monarch even more often than Excel!" the executive told Datawatch. <A href="#article10">[more]</A> (2) Datawatch in the Press: CEO Ken Bero Speaks with BeyeNETWORK; CMO John Kitchen Speaks with eWeek. Datawatch President and CEO Ken Bero recently spoke with Ron Powell, founder and Editorial Director of the BeyeNETWORK, a leading web portal for business intelligence. Datawatch Chief Marketing Officer John Kitchen discussed operational business intelligence with Mike Vizard for eWeek.<A href="#article20">[more] </A> (3) When a Monarch Filter Just Won't Do: Monarch Tip. <A href="#article30">[more] </A> (4) Immediate ROI: Monarch Training! <A href="#article40">[more] </A> <DIV align=left> </DIV></TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> </TD><TD vAlign=top width=231><A href="http://www.monarchforums.com/sendmessage.php?do=sendtofriend&t=2846" target="_blank"><IMG src="http://www.monarchforums.com/images/Monarch-Report-top-sidebar3.jpg" width=231 border=0></a><a href="http://www.datawatch.com/_products/monarch_overview.php" target="_blank"><IMG height=99 alt="" hspace=0 src="http://www.monarchforums.com/images/01Sidebar-Monarch.jpg" width=231 align=baseline border=0></A> <A href="http://www.datawatch.com/_products/monarch_pro.php" target=_blank><IMG height=68 alt="" hspace=0 src="http://www.monarchforums.com/images/02Sidebar-Monarch-Pro.jpg" width=231 align=baseline border=0></A> <A href="http://www.datawatch.com/_products/monarch_data_pump.php" target=_blank><IMG height=68 alt="" hspace=0 src="http://www.monarchforums.com/images/03Sidebar-Monarch-Data-Pump.jpg" width=231 align=baseline border=0></A> <A href="http://www.datawatch.com/_products/monarch_data_pump_pro.php" target=_blank><IMG height=66 alt="" hspace=0 src="http://www.monarchforums.com/images/04Sidebar-Monarch-Data-Pump-Pro.jpg" width=231 align=baseline border=0></A> <A href="http://www.datawatch.com/_products/monarch_bi_server.php" target=_blank><IMG height=67 alt="" hspace=0 src="http://www.monarchforums.com/images/05Sidebar-MonarchBI-Server.jpg" width=231 align=baseline border=0></A> <A href="http://www.datawatch.com/_products/monarch_rms.php" target=_blank><IMG height=73 alt="" hspace=0 src="http://www.monarchforums.com/images/06Sidebar-Monarch-RMS.jpg" width=231 align=baseline border=0></A> <A href="http://www.datawatch.com/_products/datawatch_es.php" target=_blank><IMG height=75 alt="" hspace=0 src="http://www.monarchforums.com/images/07Sidebar-Datawatch-ES.jpg" width=231 align=baseline border=0></A> <A href="http://www.datawatch.com/_products/datawatch_bds.php" target=_blank><IMG height=87 alt="" hspace=0 src="http://www.monarchforums.com/images/08Sidebar-Datawatch-BDS.jpg" width=231 align=baseline border=0></A> <A href="http://www.datawatch.com/_products/datawatch_mailmanager.php" target=_blank><IMG height=76 alt="" hspace=0 src="http://www.monarchforums.com/images/09Sidebar-Datawatch-MM.jpg" width=231 align=baseline border=0></A></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE height=554 cellSpacing=15 cellPadding=0 width=600 align=center bgColor=#fffbd0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top><A name=article10></A><HR> Monarch Builds Strong Internal Audit Practices for Global Contracting & Manufacturing Firm Datawatch recently spoke with a senior internal audit executive for a leading building materials manufacturer and contractor based in North America. The company uses Monarch extensively in the field to quickly and easily ensure global financial reporting in line with GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles), plus perform account reconciliations, exception reporting and more. "I use Monarch even more often than Excel!" the executive told Datawatch. The company turned to Monarch as its primary internal auditing tool after finding a leading auditing software tool was too difficult to work with, and too difficult to train others in remote offices in its use as well. The senior internal audit executive created Monarch models with numerous calculated fields and filters. He now shares these model files with others who also have a copy of Monarch, to ensure consistent use of Monarch for repetitive ongoing auditing projects. It should also be noted that Monarch Pro (as of version 9) enables "linking" to model files stored externally on a network or SharePoint repository. This helps ensure the use of Monarch models, calculations, filters, etc. is consistent across all Monarch users in an organization. Once a well-built Monarch model has been created, it is reused across the organization again and again. Monarch easily mines data from reports produced by Oracle Financials, the firm's primary global enterprise accounting solution. "Many of the Oracle Financials reports, particularly those produced by its Project Accounting module, contain many calculations performed within the report itself and are not stored within the Oracle database," Datawatch was told. "Monarch simply mines these complex calculations off the reports for easy analysis and integration with Microsoft Excel." As the company's operations are heavily project-driven, project-by-project accounting analysis is very important to the company. Monarch provides this critical analysis by easily mining data from Oracle project accounting reports and enabling the use of filters to quickly identify exception data, such as comparing project revenue versus costs versus budgets; comparing invoicing of inventory items to the customer with the company's inventory costs mined from purchase order reports; and finding other aberrant data suggesting potential problems with certain projects. "The project level data provided by Monarch enables me to ask division controllers informed, focused questions on specific projects to help ensure projects remain on track, with error-free accounting," the executive told Datawatch. "Many division controllers use Monarch for their own accounting and financial analysis as well." Not all global locations are running Oracle Financials, Datawatch was told. However, Monarch enables easy integration of data from locations running other applications which may have certain limitations compared with Oracle. "As long as the core application can produce basic reports," the executive told Datawatch, "Monarch can fill in the application's limitations through calculated fields, summarizations of data, and the ability to export the data to Excel." The internal audit team also uses Monarch to analyze data mined from financial reports to routinely look for exception data. For example, auditors filter financial report data by product, and then identify gross margins that are over or under a target margin range for that product. Other Monarch filters look for abnormal data, such as mining data from inventory transaction reports to isolate inventory accounts with a credit balance, indicating erroneous transactions have taken place. Another important area of internal control best practice, made easy with Monarch, is the filtering of manual journal entries. "It is important to confirm why manual journal entries were made to bank accounts, revenue accounts, and inventory accounts," Datawatch was told. Filtering the general ledger for manual journal entries made on a Sunday was also suggested as an internal controls best practice as well; again, made easy with Monarch (in fact, Monarch V10 offers a raft of new date functions, enabling Monarch to match your organization's unique policy regarding time intervals). The company’s internal audit function constantly turns to Monarch for easily sourced and customized accounting data with no programming and no need for help from the IT department. Monarch enables focused and proactive auditing and analysis that can be easily implemented and utilized for day to day use by anyone in your organization. <a href="http://www.datawatch.com/case_studies/case_studies.php" target="_blank">Read more Monarch success stories, covering a wide variety of industries and business functions.</a> <A href="#topofpage">back to top of page</A> <HR><A name="article20"></A><A name=article20></A>Datawatch in the Press: CEO Ken Bero Speaks with BeyeNETWORK; CMO John Kitchen Speaks with eWeek Datawatch President and CEO Ken Bero recently spoke with Ron Powell, founder and Editorial Director of the BeyeNETWORK, a leading web portal for business intelligence. You can listen to this podcast <a href="http://www.b-eye-network.com/watch/9492" target="_blank">here.</a> Ken discussed the unique Datawatch perspective on business intelligence, focused on programming-free BI using Monarch-powered report mining technology. Ken also discussed Monarch BI Server, our new web-enabled BI solution, ideally suited for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), departments and divisions seeking very easily implemented BI at a small fraction of the cost and time demanded by traditional BI solutions. Meanwhile, Datawatch Chief Marketing Officer John Kitchen discussed the need for operational business intelligence amid this difficult economy, and the Datawatch approach to BI using Monarch-powered technology. You can listen to this podcast <a href="http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Enterprise-Applications/Distributed-Business-Intelligence-495517" target="_blank">here.</a> Ken also summarized the successful implantation of Monarch BI Server by St. Joseph Medical Center, based in Maryland. St. Joseph's success with Monarch BI Server was explored in further detail in the new first quarter 2009 issue of Business Intelligence Journal, the official publication of The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI). "Small and midsize businesses have many of the same business intelligence needs as large companies, but often have to address them with a significantly smaller staff and budget," Business Intelligence Journal contributor Linda Briggs wrote. "That makes products that deliver BI functions without large installation and configuration costs [notably Monarch BI Server for St. Joseph Medical Center] a clearly appealing prospect." <A href="#topofpage">back to top of page</A> <HR><A name="article30"></A><A name=article30></A>When a Monarch Filter Just Won't Do: Monarch Tip New Monarch Forums member "Hootie" recently <a href="http://www.monarchforums.com/showthread.php?t=2794" target="_blank">submitted</a> the following Monarch challenge. For the report excerpt shown below, Monarch must display all the detail lines for an account in which there is a balance in any of the transactions, even if the total is zero. <IMG src="http://www.monarchforums.com/images/Monarch-Tip1-03-2009.jpg"> No data for Account 11111 is required because none of the transactions include any balance. But because at least one of the transactions for Account 22222 and 33333 did contain a balance, we want to display all transactions for those accounts. Therefore, we need Monarch to display the following data: <IMG src="http://www.monarchforums.com/images/Monarch-Tip2-03-2009.jpg"> A regular Monarch filter in the table view will not solve this challenge because a filter is applied to each row of Monarch data individually. Here, we needed to filter the data based on whether our desired data condition, balance<>0 within any transaction, ever exists! Grant Perkins, the first-ever winner of the Tom Whiteside Memorial Award, honoring the Monarch customer evangelist of the year, suggested a clever solution beginning with a calculated field to test whether an account balance exists at any point. This calculated field is then used to display the desired data in a Monarch summary view. The above report excerpt is easy to trap, Grant noted: trap the transactions as a Detail template and trap the Account Number as an append level template. Next, we will create a calculated field which we'll name "Acct bal gt zero": Balance<>0 where "Balance" is the name of the balance column. This very brief calculated field formula tests whether a balance not equal to zero exists in each row in the Monarch table. If a balance besides zero exists, this calculated field column will display 1 (TRUE). Otherwise this calculated field will display a zero (FALSE). Now, create a summary with Account, Date, Type, Invoice as key fields and Amount, Balance and [Acct bal gt zero] as measures. SUM should be fine in this case. In the Monarch summary definition, go into the PROPERTIES of the ACCOUNT field (Right Click in the summary definition window). Select the MATCHING tab and click on the radio button for MEASURE LIMIT. Make the field to be measured [Acct bal gt zero], the test to be "<>" (not equal to) and the value to be 0 (see below). <IMG src="http://www.monarchforums.com/images/Monarch-Tip3-03-2009.jpg"> The effect of this will be to filter the summary to only display Account numbers where at least one of the Balance values is not zero. Once you are happy that the test works as required for the report, you can go into the properties for the [Acct bal gt zero] MEASURE and tick the box that will make it a hidden field if hiding is required. If you find yourself trying to display desired Monarch data based on criteria that goes beyond what a Monarch filter can do, give this clever, reusable technique a try. First, create a calculated field to test for the existence of the data you are trying to isolate, and then display Monarch summary data based on the value of that calculated field. Well done, Grant! Visit the <a href="http://www.monarchforums.com" target="_blank">Monarch Forums</a> now! Register as a member and you can post your own questions, respond to others, and much more. <A href="#topofpage">back to top of page</A> <DIV align=left><HR> <A name="article40"></A>Immediate ROI: Monarch Training In this economy, product training had better provide immediate benefit for your organization. Monarch training from Datawatch fits the bill! Choose from Monarch training classes for beginner, intermediate and advanced Monarch users to achieve and expand your Monarch skills for immediate new productivity and business benefits! <a href="http://www.datawatch.com/_services/dates_locations_prices.php" target="_blank">View all upcoming Monarch training classes now.</a> <a href="http://www.datawatch.com/_services/course_curricula.php" target="_blank">View detailed curricula for all Monarch classes.</a> <A href="#topofpage">back to top of page</A> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>