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Excel4apps in the News

View recently published articles about Excel4apps, its Oracle and SAP reporting and inquiry solutions, customers, and more by clicking a headline below.
  • Director of Finance Online - UK

    Integrating Microsoft Excel within the Oracle or SAP ERP environment for live reporting & analysis

    3 April 2012

    Director of Finance Online - Spring 2012
    Organisations go to great lengths to implement Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems and for very good reasons. ERP systems, such as Oracle or SAP, support data centralisation and eliminate islands of information caused by software applications that do not communicate. Despite these compelling reasons and the overall benefits of ERP systems in general, many users find them rigid and difficult to adapt to certain workflows and business processes.

    In particular, financial and business analysts and accountants often cite the difficulty of creating financials reports within an ERP system’s data warehouse environment. In many cases, these financial ERP users depend on information technology (IT) staff to program the query, which takes time and creates dependency on another department. While having a standing request for scheduled reports might work, running ad-hoc reports that must be reviewed quickly by staff or delivered at the request of an executive can become an ordeal. Such pronounced dependency on the IT department from finance creates a high probability that productivity will be compromised, deadlines missed, and stress levels elevated. What’s more, data warehouses are expensive to maintain from an IT perspective and require a separate server.

    For the full article in pdf format click here: Integrating Microsoft Excel within the Oracle or SAP ERP environment for live reporting and analysis

  • Manufacturing Business Technology

    Report And Budget With Excel-Based Product Suite

    15 March 2012

    In need of a faster, simpler way of reporting financial data, one company turned to an Excel-based general ledger (GL) reporting tool.

    For over 60 years, Powell Industries has provided engineering solutions for the transportation, energy, and utilities industries, among others. With twelve divisions, 3,000-plus employees and revenues around $600 million, the Houston, Texas-based company serves businesses around the world from facilities in the US, Canada, and the UK, focusing on custom design and manufacturing of power control rooms.

    For the full article, click here: Report And Budget With Excel-Based Product Suite

  • SAP insiderProfiles

    SAP insiderProfiles - The Best of Both Worlds

    22 February 2012

    Link the Familiarity of Excel with the Power of SAP ERP Financials
    Many financial professionals use Microsoft Excel to support their financial processes and, typically, they tend to rely on IT to create any uploading templates, queries, and reports from their SAP systems. ZOption and Excel4apps have teamed together to offer SAP ERP Financials end users quick and simple ways to manage their data in a Microsoft Excel-based environment.

    For the full article in pdf format click here: Link the Familiarity of Excel with the Power of SAP ERP Financials.

  • Oracle Magazine Jan-Feb 2012

    Oracle Magazine - Partner Product Watch

    30 December 2011

    Live at Oracle OpenWorld 2011, Excel4apps presents the award-winning GL Wand reporting and inquiry solution for financial users of Oracle E-Business Suite. This video showcases functionality highlights of the Excel-based GL Wand, in addition to user and partner interviews.

    For the video click here: GL Wand reporting and inquiry solution or for the article click here: Oracle Magazine Jan-Feb 2012.

  • Food Engineering - Lesaffre Yeast Corporation

    ERP system gets help from flexible reporting tool

    10 August 2011

    Lesaffre Yeast Corporation gains direct access to Oracle financial data via Excel-based software, improving reporting efficiency and management support.

    In 2004, Lesaffre installed the Process Manufacturing version of Oracle E-Business Suite (OPM), designed specifically for recipe-based manufacturing. It was one of the first subsidiaries within the Lesaffre Group family, a global company of 6,000 employees based in France, to install a fully integrated ERP system.

    According to Michael Roach, controller for Lesaffre Yeast Corporation, implementation of the system provided immediate benefits, including improved coordination across functional departments and increased efficiencies in doing business. However, soon after installation of the system, Lesaffre’s finance and accounting group discovered challenges in working with Oracle’s Financial Statement Generator (FSG).

    Read the full article here: ERP system gets help from flexible reporting tool

  • Consumer Goods Technology - Fiji Water

    FIJI Water Improves Financial Reports

    2 August 2011

    After its acquisition, FIJI Water installed a business suite, which is used by Roll International’s other businesses. Quickly, FIJI Water’s finance and accounting group found that standard reporting tools did not support easy consolidation of financial statements from the company’s various international businesses.

    Standard Reporting a "Painful" Challenge

    Headquartered in Los Angeles, Calif., FIJI Water consists of 15 legal entities operating around the world. These entities are represented by 15 sets of books, each with a distinct company number, meaning monthly financial reports require consolidation of balance sheets and profit and loss (P&L) statements. From 2004 to 2006, FIJI Water’s Finance group relied on standard reporting tools. According to Armando Sepulveda, financial planning and analysis director at FIJI Water, the initial two years using these standard reports were “very painful” for his group.

    Read the full article here: FIJI Water Improves Financial Reports

  • Government Technology - Detroit

    Detroit Meets Financial Reporting Deadline With New Software

    14 March 2011

    Detroit submitted its Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) early for the first time in more than a decade this year, thanks in part to GL Wand, a Microsoft Excel-based reporting tool.

    GL Wand provides users with a direct link via Excel to financial information in Detroit’s Oracle ERP system, significantly reducing the preparation time for the report. The city submitted its fiscal year 2009-2010 CAFR two weeks early.

    The city started using GL Wand in 2009. Detroit’s financial staff also used it to complete its 2008 and 2009 CAFRs within one fiscal year. The tool was created by Excel4apps.

    Read the full article here: Detroit Meets Financial Reporting Deadline With New Software

  • Search Oracle - Tech Target

    SearchOracle.com lead story "Brokerage dumps Oracle EBS reporting tool for Excel"

    2 February 2011

    SearchOracle.com provides the best independent resource for Oracle professionals was leading with this story today. Business users at GFI Group were having a difficult time with the complexity of the Oracle E-Business Suite financial reporting tools, so the company went to an Excel-based tool called GL Wand.
    Read the full story on SearchOracle.com

  • Oracle Magazine

    Oracle Partner Magazine - Jan/Feb 2011 - Excel4apps one of seven partners to achieve Oracle Validated Integration with Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1

    5 January 2011

    Excel4apps was mentioned as one of seven Oracle partners to achieve Oracle Validated Integration with Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 According to the Article in the Oracle Magazine, GL Wand 4.1, provides Microsoft Excel–based reporting and budget-loading software for use with Oracle applications. The article went on to say that GL Wand allows Excel-based report creation and queries against Oracle data, enabling accountants and other users with minimal Oracle training to do data analysis and ad hoc reporting. From a security perspective, GL Wand requires no data replication, has centralized application management, and utilizes the Oracle applications’ sign-on. See the full excerpt by visiting www.oracle.com.

  • Oracle Partner Network

    Excel4apps Executive discusses Oracle Validated Integration on OPN video blog

    8 December 2010

    Excel4apps executive, Michele Buson was interviewed by the Oracle Partner Network in San Francisco. In the interview, Michele Buson covers the joint value proposition of GL Wand as an add-on solution for customers running the Oracle E-Business Suite. Michele also discusses the main reasons for embarking on and successfully achieving Oracle Validated Intergration and the resulting benefits to both Excel4apps and customers. View the complete video online at www.youtube.com.

  • Red Rock Consulting - Hot Rocks

    Excel4apps in the spotlight as RED ROCK CONSULTING Partner

    2 December 2010

    2011 starts on a high note for Red Rock with the Red Rock Oracle Leadership Forum being held in Sydney on March 17th. The Forum is the largest Oracle Partner event in ANZ which is completely dedicated to all aspects of Oracle applications and the Oracle technology stack... Red Rock Consulting is the largest independent provider of Oracle, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, Demantra and Microsoft SQL Server consulting and managed services in Australia and New Zealand. Red Rock Consulting is also an Excel4apps Reseller Partner and a GL Wand customer. See the Hot Rocks Newsletter of 2010 for latest news from Red Rock Consulting.

  • Oracle Buyer's Guide

    Excel4apps featured in OAUG 2010-2011 buyers guide

    10 September 2010

    Check out the OAUG buyers guide to find ideas for improving the performance of your Oracle environment. It features new user case studies and step-by-step guidelines for adapting to ever-changing business and technology conditions. Be sure to look at page 6 to see why and how one of Excel4apps customers deployed GL Wand and Budget Wand.

  • Hospitality Technology - Destination Hotels & Resorts

    Financial Reporting Tool Equals Time Savings for Destination Hotels & Resorts

    15 April 2010

    Destination Hotels & Resorts (www.destinationhotels.com) functions with a lean IT support staff and is constantly looking for more efficient ways to operate. After installing Oracle's E-Business Suite (www.oracle.com) in 2006, the company gained unique insights into business and financial performance, but soon found that financial report generation within Oracle was time consuming for finance and accounting users. Destination Hotels & Resorts needed a tool that would allow these users to spend more time analyzing data rather than querying and formatting it for presentation.

    In early 2007, a project team began the search for an easy-to-use tool for daily, monthly, yearly and ad hoc reporting. Like most financial professionals, the 100-plus business users at Destination are extremely familiar with Microsoft Excel, so the team was looking for a tool with a similar front end that could drill down to specific Oracle data.

    Read the full article here: Financial Reporting Tool Equals Time Savings for Destination Hotels & Resorts

  • HBO - Oracle Profit Magazine

    For blockbuster success HBO casts Oracle E-Business Suite in a leading role

    18 January 2010

    A recent article by that title appeared in the Oracle Profit Magazine, the Executive Guide to Oracle Applications, authored by Molly Rose Teuke and dated February 2010. It tells the story of the E-Business Suite implementation at Home Box Office (HBO), a subsidiary of Time Warner. HBO offers original programming content to upwards of 40 million subscribers in the U.S. via its HBO and Cinemax premium networks. Of course, much to our delight, GL Wand got a mention in a supporting role by Marie Mahony, vice president of financial operations and reporting at HBO. On the benefits of direct access to information in an integrated system like Oracle, Mahony had this to say.

    “This means less reliance on static reports built by IT and more emphasis on dynamic real-time queries and analysis using standard Oracle E-Business Suite tools as well as a third-party reporting tool, GL Wand,” Excel4apps was mentioned by Oracle, as the Oracle Partner Product and IBM for the implementation services used by HBO. All products are available for immediate download and free trial, installing in minutes with no data warehouse and no additional hardware, setup or security configuration needed. To read the article in its entirety, view it at www.oracle.com.

  • Destination Hotels & Resorts

    Destination Hotels & Resorts Realizes Benefits of GL Wand

    16 February 2009

    A recurring theme we constantly hear from our customers is that our products are so simple to support from an IT standpoint. For Destination Hotels & Resorts, supporting hundreds of Oracle business users with a staff of just three in IT is a constant struggle. When the company went looking for a tool that would provide more flexibility to its users for generating reports and meeting daily reporting requirements, they settled on GL Wand.

    “What really made the difference for us was the willingness by Excel4apps to allow us to demo GL Wand live with our own data. We tested a number of different systems, but GL Wand ranked the highest of all the systems we tested based on our long list of priority requirements. The best part was that not only did our users love the features and functionality, but the installation, deployment, and training of more than 75 users took less than a week. Users were off and running within minutes of their training without any support from our IT staff,” says Martin Stanton, Vice President of Information Technology for Destination.

    Read more about Destination Hotels & Resorts' experience with GL Wand in the Spring 2009 issue of OAUG Insight Magazine by visiting www.excel4apps.com.

  • "It’s great to work with a group so committed to providing not only a great product but stellar service as well."

    J Raffensberger (MBA), Corporate Controller, Glatfelters

  • "GL Wand is a fabulous tool, we love it."   

    Donna Holley, Spectranetics

  • "This has to be the quickest ROI we've had on any software investment."

    J Raffensberger (MBA), Corporate Controller, Glatfelters

  • “GL Wand has been a big hit with Cairn’s Finance team."

    Chris Hebden, Cairn Energy PLC

  • "It took less than two hours to train report users. The time savings for everyone is incredible."

    Francis Nocom, Applications Manager, Cochlear

  • “GL Wand has proven extremely valuable in accessing our Oracle data with Excel."

    Michael Hinck, Finance Systems Project Manager, HBO

  • "GL Wand has given our finance users the freedom to think outside the box and be more innovative with performance metrics."

    Martin Stanton, Chief Information Officer, Destination Hotels & Resorts

  • "GL Wand has given our finance users a very flexible tool."

    Paul Simpson, Lancashire County Council