A modern, powerful financial reporting software is basically essential to compete in today’s business culture, specifically by accessing and analyzing data to navigate your sector and the economy with stronger decision-making.  In this article, we will outline the premier features and functionalities of today’s best financial reporting software on the market, so you can implement the right solution for producing accessible, informational financial reports with your information from Intacct and additional data sources.

Independent software vendors (ISVs) have produced tools that can pull financial data from Intacct and your additional data sources, either by way of a live integration from Intacct or relying on a Business Intelligence (BI) data store.  Similar to most accounting systems, Intacct is built with native report writing functionality, but more companies than ever are choosing to go the third party software route because of the modernity, the business user friendliness, and power of today’s product offerings.  With the best ISV solutions, you can build templates that you can reuse for financial reports, which enables your organization to access, manage, and evaluate your data, for richer decision-making at the executive level.

Working with accountants all the time, we’ve seen a lot of companies try to stick it out with the Microsoft Business Intelligence (BI) stack or a tool that is marketed as “free” when they have grown out of the native reporting function.  However, financial reporting is such an important process that you shouldn’t rely on a product just because it seems like the default next step.  You should really consider what is necessary to successfully work together to create a stronger future for the company.  Think about your preferred data integration method, your options for software platform, and how easy-to-use the software is for professionals across the organization and at any level, as well as other elements.

Let’s start with data integration options, which is arguably the foundation to selecting a financial reporting software.  You will want to weigh which method will adequately help you to meet team goals, whether you are pulling information live from Intacct or relying on a more stable, high performance integration, querying data from an online analytical processing (OLAP) cube or data warehouse.  A live integration from Intacct translates to real-time data analyses without having to replicate company information to an OLAP cube or data warehouse for an up-to-the-minute financial statement.

If you decide to go with a data warehouse, an OLAP cube, or a data mart, we thinks it is important to note that a data store is an added cost.  If your team consists of several Intacct users who might query data simultaneously here and there, a live integration can make your Intacct server sluggish, which is where BI data stores come in, allowing you to store multiple data types in one place.

To continue learning more about modern financial report writing for Intacct, read the rest of this article here.