The Power of Spreadsheet Automation

The Power of Spreadsheet Automation A Centralized Approach to Budgeting, Planning and Financial Reporting
In this white paper from A3 Solutions, you will learn how you can automate your budgeting, planning, forecasting and reporting processes by bringing analytic database power to Microsoft Excel using the worlds leading Spreadsheet Application Server.

Theres a very simple reason why leading organizations such as American Airlines, Cox Communications, Verizon, Johnson & Johnson, Safeway, Williams-Sonoma and over 40 Fortune 1000 companies use A3 Web Spreadsheet Server to increase the speed and accuracy of data collection, consolidation, reporting and analysis. It delivers the efciencies, control and timeliness they want in their nancial data.
Robert Lautt, CEO and Founder, A3 Solutions, Inc.

Executive Summary: the Genesis of Spreadsheet Automation

A3 Modeling was developed while providing consulting services to dozens of organizations intent on centralizing their Excel-based modeling, planning and forecasting activities. After listening to the concerns of CFOs, line-of-business managers and accounting personnel in a variety of industries, it became clear that what these business people needed was an enterprise spreadsheet automation built on top of a centralized database. They wanted to capitalize on their existing spreadsheet processes in a consistent, controlled, extensible manner. As the manager of nancial planning and analysis at a large grocery retailer said, Viewing data in a spreadsheet makes a lot of sense. Storing the data there makes no sense at all. A3 spent ten years and four major software releases to construct an infrastructure that moves spreadsheet data into an analytical database and allows end users to view those models fully populated and personalized with live data on demand. Each request retrieves current, enterprise data from secure, centralized databases. Every member of the team can view and update that data, simplifying administration

and enforcing data integrity. No technical programming is required using Visual Basic for Applications, Java, or any other development tool. Twenty years and four major releases later, we are pleased to release A3 Modeling 2010, the worlds most complete and sophisticated enterprise spreadsheet application platform. Hundreds of companies in dozens of industries have deployed A3 Modeling to solve their spreadsheet problems. These companies demand budgeting and planning solutions that include analytic tools such as dashboards. They want complete visibility into corporate operations and sophisticated nancial models that reveal multiple levels of detail. They insist on solutions that are easy, intuitive, and cost effective over the long term. A3 Modeling 2010 features a familiar spreadsheet front-end, an analytic database back-end, and a collaborative online environment that maximizes productivity for web-based communities. In the remainder of this paper, we will describe this unique solution in detail and explain how A3 solves pervasive problems that have plagued the business community for decades.

The Power of Spreadsheet Automation

Raising the Bar

Introducing A3 Modeling 2010, the New Standard for Financial Modeling, Budgeting and Planning Activities Revolutionary: A3 represents a new generation of analytic application platform, yet it is based on one of the most pervasive and familiar personal productivity tools the computer industry has ever known: Microsoft Excel. Easy to Use: Basic Microsoft Excel skills lead to sophisticated, shared nancial models that incorporate statistics and non-nancial measures as well. Comprehensive: A3 can create budgets and forecasts not only for nance and planning, but also for manufacturing, sales and other domains. Collaborative: A3 models are available to authorized users throughout the enterprise. For example, as soon as the operations budget is complete, the nance department has visibility into the consolidated results.

The Challenge of Spreadsheet Automation a Historical Perspective

It is no exaggeration to say that Microsoft Excel is todays lingua franca of business analysis, currently in use at millions of organizations throughout the world. Its popularity is understandable; Excel is ideally suited for creating nancial documents in the form of sales forecasts, expense reports, prot and loss statements and a dizzying variety of pro formas. As a robust spreadsheet application it provides calculation tools, simple database functionality and its modeling capabilities are unrivaled, making it an easy-to-use solution for collecting, consolidating, analyzing and otherwise managing nancial and operational data. However, when the Microsoft Windows version of Excel was rst released in 1987, it was simply designed as a desktop application for performing standalone analysis tasks, not as a data-sharing or workgroup system. In the intervening years, Excel has been pushed into service as the go-to nancial-analysis platform for most businesses, from sole proprietorships to Global 1000 corporations. Although the power of Excel to enhance productivity, enforce uniformity and speed the delivery of information is undeniable, a variety of serious problems surround its daily use in enterprise environments. For example, the challenge of consolidating data from hundreds or even thousands of separate spreadsheet les makes it impossible to enforce data integrity and consistency. As a consequence, nancial managers nd themselves continuously consolidating spreadsheet data into centralized repositories of nancial information. The result is that inconsistent, incomplete and otherwise questionable nancials are relied upon for mission critical forecasting, budgeting, reporting and analysis. Many companies have devised integral business models, processes and expertise around spreadsheets. Unfortunately, when spreadsheet processes become enterprise processes, the administrative burden becomes untenable, and costs, inaccuracies and inefciencies escalate.

The A3 Spreadsheet Application Server is the industrys rst modeling platform to centrally manage real-time spreadsheet data. Today, it continues to be among the most effective solutions to fully integrate Excel les into a true Web architecture.

Ultimately these data integration and management issues create what we refer to as the many versions of the truth problem. The manual and time consuming practice of emailing Excel workbooks back and forth and replacing the original worksheets with newer ones creates enormous data duplication and le management and reconciliation issues. Companies spend lots of time and effort managing these spreadmarts and then attempting to deliver consolidated reports before the data becomes stale. Predictably, managers struggle with a loss of visibility, a myriad of data integrity problems and compromised decision-making. Many executives are surprised to learn that the average organization depends on spreadsheets for twenty or more business-critical processes involving from ten to hundreds of users. To counter these problems, organizations often undertake customized data integration projects or deploy packaged budgeting applicationstypically at great expense and effort. Another increasingly common strategy is to attempt to tame unmanageable spreadmarts with document management tools that track changes by user and enforce check-in/check-out security policies. Both of these approaches have merit

The Power of Spreadsheet Automation

A3 software drastically reduces our planning cycle time and lets us meet the information needs of upper management.
Toyota Motors

but they fall short when models become moderately complex, involve more than a handful of users, or require real-time consolidation, reporting and analysis.. Fortunately, there is a better way.

Spreadsheets Transformed Into Enterprise Apps

More than ten years after todays leading Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Corporate Performance Management (CPM) applications hit the market, an estimated 80 percent of companies still plan and manage their businesses using desktop spreadsheets individual islands of data isolated on the desktops of analysts and managers. The reason is simple: while packaged applications offer the promise of centralized efciency and broad feature sets, they are based on rigid, monolithic proprietary architectures. And because they are designed to replace corporate spreadsheet processes, these solutions invariably contain assumptions about how information is structured, and how users should go about accomplishing goals. Implementing CPM is a labor-intensive process involving the installation of multiple software packages, and requiring retraining of the workforce. At best, the customer can take advantage of 60 to 80 percent of the best practices embodied in these solutions. Along the way, they are forced to abandon the sophisticated and intricate business rules they have modeled in their spreadsheets and make signicant compromises to t their business practices into the constraints of the packaged application.

Our plan arrived on-time and under budget, even with a major reorganization in the middle of the process. We are very happy with our investment in A3 Solutions.
American Airlines

processes such as enterprise budgeting, compensation and human resource planning, capital budgeting, revenue forecasting, and product & customer protability forecasting. A3 Modeling 2010 turns this vision to reality, heralding a new era in corporate performance management. The A3 Spreadsheet Application Server functions as a centralized Web-based platform, capable of delivering spreadsheet-based data from a central server directly to Excel on a users desktop. Once installed and congured, A3 Modeling instantly reduces the time and labor associated with complex spreadsheet processes. This proven solution increases condence in reporting and analysis, and brings more timely and detailed visibility into operational performance, so CFOs, nancial executives and accounting managers can make decisions more quickly and condently. Unlike band-aid solutions such as Macros and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), which attempt to extend functionality through add-on modules, A3 requires no ongoing investments in custom programming to keep up with changes in business conditions or user requirements.

Unied Performance Management an Achievable Goal

Imagine a nancial management solution that does it all: centrally administered with security, auditability and workow, yet also supporting the exible nancial modeling practices that you take for granted in your spreadsheets. Imagine also that this system enables instantaneous consolidations, executive dashboards, management-reporting and ad-hoc slice-and-dice analysis. Finally, imagine that this platform unies multiple corporate performance management processes under a single application architecture

The Power of Spreadsheet Automation

We searched for more than a year and evaluated every planning package on the market. Until we found A3 Solutions, nothing addressed our need for exibility, sophisticated modeling and enterprise integration. The A3 software is nothing short of a strategic competitive weapon for us.
Beauty Products Manufacturer

Heres an example of the power of A3 spreadsheet automation at work: The Chief Marketing Ofcer of a major consumer products company identies new revenue opportunities by studying recent sales forecasts. She decides to change the six-month product-mix forecast. Rather than emailing iterations of spreadsheet models to other managers, she simply opens her browser on the A3 Modeling home page, clicks on the pertinent group of users and selects the model she wishes to update. She composes a brief message and sends it to these managers, along with a link that opens a live personalized model containing just the data relevant to each users work. A minute later, users are updating their forecasts and the marketing ofcer has instant visibility into consolidated results as well as the status of each users submission. The entire collaboration occurs quickly and efciently, compressing an otherwise unwieldy decision-making process into a near real-time event. Business interruption is minimized. Furthermore, as actuals data becomes available and variances are reported, the marketing ofcer can review the program and make corrections, optimizing nancial budgeting, forecasting and management reporting.

Figure 1 Potential Spreadsheet Risk Factors and Outcomes

Risk Elements
Error Fraud Overdependence Incorrect interpretation Lack of enterprise interoperability Productivity Compliance source: Forrester Research

Outcomes
Financial loss Legal challenges Loss of stock value Loss of reputation Fines and penalties

workow, and KPI dashboards. Executives who rely on cross-functional spreadsheet processes will receive accurate information more quickly than ever before. The result is a high value, easy-to-deploy solution that integrates comprehensive CPM functionality and costs much less to purchase and implement than traditional budgeting and planning software packages. Greater efciency via fast, accurate, automated consolidations Higher data integrity, productivity and communications Quicker business decisions, and clear visibility into issues through real-time analysis A3 transforms spreadsheet budgeting, forecasting and reporting processes into efcient, high integrity enterprise-class applications. As a fully standards-compliant platform, weve architected the A3 Spreadsheet Application Server to interface tightly with leading application servers, database management systems and business intelligence tools such as Tomcat, Oracle WebLogic Server, IBM WebSphere, Microsoft Analysis Services, and Oracle Hyperion Essbase. This facilitates timely and secure management reporting and analysis, across the enterprise and for every stakeholder. In addition, our

A3 Delivers Enterprise-Wide Benets with Measurable Efciencies

The goal of spreadsheet automation is to provide a framework for building efcient enterprise spreadsheet processes while capitalizing on the models, analytics and expertise that already permeate your organization. With A3, modeling of both nancial data and operational statistics is fast and straightforward. The process begins by migrating spreadsheets onto the A3 Spreadsheet Application Server. Users can then access their familiar spreadsheet models and enjoy powerful new capabilities like interactive writeback, instant consolidations, automated version and scenario management, interactive slice and dice analysis, comprehensive security, multi-approval

The Power of Spreadsheet Automation

A Fresh Look at on Excel for both the analysis interface and the model Enterprise Applications authoring environment. As a result, users avoid the
The Enterprise Budgeting and Planning market is ripe for renewal. Most packaged applications havent kept up with todays modern, web-based architectures. These complex software environments are at the end of their useful life. Customers are frustrated with lengthy implementation cycles and expensive maintenance contracts. Todays business owners want budgeting and planning solutions that are easy to implement, yet still contain enterprise capabilities such as dashboards for nancial and operations personnel. Furthermore, as the software industry gravitates towards centralized, turnkey solutions, business users want to reduce their dependence on IT and achieve greater self-sufciency. Most modern organizations support widely distributed work groups, where colleagues collaborate through social networks and web-based communities. Yesterdays enterprise software applications simply cant keep up.

Spreadsheet Application Server technology capitalizes

presentation constraints of traditional proprietary reporting technologies, leveraging, instead, the full extent of their Excel modeling skills in the creation and distribution of nancial reports. A3 supports the monthly consolidation processes of even the most demanding enterprise. With A3 Modeling, you enjoy fully customized and highly sophisticated allocations processing, inter-company eliminations, currency conversion, and journal entries that are all GAAP and Sarbanes-Oxley compliant. In addition, unlike many traditional packaged offerings, our consolidations capability is an integral part of A3 Modeling. This means that reporting, analysis, budgeting and dashboard capabilities are congured and managed as a single integrated technology platform. Once the A3 Web Spreadsheet Server and Modeling components have been implemented, the following capabilities are immediately enabled:

Finance departments of large enterprises have always enjoyed our scalability and cost-effective customizability. Now with a lower total cost of ownership, A3 is attracting nance and operating groups with smaller budgets and more limited resources, a key consideration during these difcult economic times.
Stuart Ratner, COO/VP Sales/Founder, A3 Solutions, Inc.

more effectively. Obtain instant and consistent answers to your analytic questions. Empower users with interactive nancial data. No more macros, no more links. And no need for a complex nancial software package.

Dynamic Interactive Financial Modeling

A3 gives you enterprise nancial data at your ngertips! Consolidate disconnected spreadsheet les into a centralized database to budget, forecast and report

Cohesive Budgeting and Forecasting

Keep doing budgeting and forecasting your way, not according to somebody elses best practices. Dont

Figure 2: In a head-to-head comparison with packaged nancial applications, the A3 Spreadsheet Application Server offers the advantages of greater exibility, easier implementation, retention of existing models and processes and a lower total cost of ownership.

Traditional Packaged Budgeting Applications

Advantages:
Point solution to specic planning problem. Generally quick solution to narrow, well dened problem. Best Practices modeling and process. Centralized control, high integrity.

New Spreadsheet Automation Server

Advantages:
Low total cost - Leverage customer assets, spreadsheets and expertise. Low risk - Emulates customers existing planning models and processes. No limits exibility, familiarity of Excel. Supports any analytic data model (OLAP) Centralized control, high integrity. Great exibility may encourage scope expansion. IT may resist a spreadsheet solution

Disadvantages:
Limited business rules coverage. Imposed data model may be poor t, costly integration. Must abandon Excel, retrain, risk to end-user acceptance

Disadvantages:

The Power of Spreadsheet Automation

With A3 Modeling, we can now manage the broad deployment of our own spreadsheet based processes signicantly faster and at a fraction of the cost. We were self-sufcient with A3 Modeling in just three months.
Cox Communications

be constrained by the limitations of a packaged application. A3 leverages your Excel models, business rules and formulas to create a custom environment for expense planning, compensation planning, capital planning, P&L planning, management reporting, allocations and inter-company eliminations.

The Ability to Leverage Existing Spreadsheet Models and Processes

Your spreadsheets represent signicant intellectual capital. Dont give them up for a nancial budgeting package. Let A3 help you extend these valuable assets into a shared database controlled by an enterprise application server environment. Leverage the value in your existing assets, but lose the administrative hassles of consolidating spreadsheets.

Implementing the correct procedures around spreadsheet controls will create the necessary working framework to allow the continued usage of spreadsheets while lessening audit issues and nancial compliance requirements.
Forrester Research, 2008

Comprehensive Corporate Performance Management

Harness existing BI resources to congure real-time budgeting, reporting, data collection and analysis. Instead of buying a stack of CPM products that require integration and metadata management, A3 supplies a complete spectrum of CPM functionality in a unied environment that includes reporting, budgeting, ad hoc analysis, dashboards, security, and workow.

Productive Spreadsheet Workgroups

A3 automates line-of-business spreadsheet activities, making it ideal for non-nance teams as well. Help departmental analysts collect, consolidate, analyze and present KPIs via repeatable, web-based business processes that leverage corporate data sources.

Figure 3: The A3 Web Spreadsheet Server is built on a modern web architecture so it is easy to integrate with other information systems.

The Power of Spreadsheet Automation

A3s exibility and Minimal Training, Low Overhead, built-in functionality Maximum Results A3 has created a series of interactive training sessions allowed us to and hands-on workshops to launch you toward achieve a broad production and independence. No need for extended project scope service contracts, dependence on high-priced consultants, and the high training costs inherent in not possible with traditional packages working with proprietary technologies. in a timeframe that A3 Modeling Core Components The A3 Web Spreadsheet Server (WSS): WSS is wasnt feasible composed of an application server (Tomcat by default) using a custom and Java/J2EE components that aid in the construction development of spreadsheet-based analytic applications. These approach. components parse XLS templates and dynamically
-- Sun Life of Canada

ll them with data according to the business rules incorporated into the templates. They render the populated templates into either XLS les for Excel or HTML web pages. The A3 Modeling Portal: The A3 Modeling Portal is the web-based interface to WSS. It allows users to select applications, display model parameters and dynamically generate the associated spreadsheet models. The A3 Player: For users who require advanced Excel functionality, the A3 Player establishes a direct connection between Excel and WSS. The Player is delivered to the users computer via the Modeling Portal. Downloading the A3 Player to the desktop is easy; it requires no administrative access (and therefore no IT support). Each of the elements of the A3 Modeling solution was created with extensibility in mind, so customers can create applications that go beyond those initially envisioned by A3 Solutions. The WSS API lets developers create extensions that access web services or build data-specic formulae in a workbook.

As a centrally administered platform, A3 offers security, auditability and workow, yet also supports the exible nancial models in existing spreadsheets. It unies multiple corporate performance management processes under a single application architecture, such as enterprise budgeting, compensation and human resource planning, capital budgeting, revenue forecasting, and product protability forecasting.
Robert Lautt, CEO and Founder, A3 Solutions, Inc.

most popular application infrastructures available including Tomcat, Oracle WebLogic Server and IBM Websphere. A3 provides direct support for OLAP databases including Microsoft Analysis Services/ MS-OLAP and Oracle Hyperion Essbase, as well as many popular relational databases. In contrast to the VBA approach, which tries to extend a spreadsheets functionality through add-on modules, A3 Modeling handles enterprise-level issues such as deployment, authentication, process-control and database connectivity without the use of custom coding. Moreover, instead of using email or le servers to deliver generic spreadsheets loaded with stale data, A3 Modeling is built as a web application that populates and personalizes models for end users on-demand from a central server directly to each users desktop. A3 is centrally maintained and deployed from any secure network server. Financial models are easily accessible with any browser and delivered through the HTTP protocol. This allows application administrators to centrally control and update each models analytics, including conditional rules, formatting, missing items suppressed, and dynamic calculations, while allowing tailored models to be delivered to each user.

Delivering Measureable Productivity and ROI Advantages to All Stakeholders

From an IT perspective, the most powerful aspect of A3 Modeling is its modern web architecture. A3 Modeling functions on an application server foundation and is built as a set of J2EE components. Thus, it leverages the well-established IT infrastructure found in todays corporations and integrates easily with some of the

The Power of Spreadsheet Automation

This architecture lets you centralize Corporate Performance Management (CPM) assets including budgeting, forecasting, nancial consolidation, management reporting, executive dashboards and other analytic processes that are typically managed in separate application silos or though a labor-intensive and error-prone spreadsheet consolidation process.

A3 Advantages For Finance and Planning:

Congurability: Models are created or modied quickly to reect the latest business conditions. Further, A3 Modeling provides options to calculate in the model and/or the database. Ease of maintenance: The Modeling Portal can be administered by non-technical personnel. Protability: Greater ROI via deployment on multiple modeling/planning projects. Collaboration and communications: Collaboration features make administrators more efcient and communications to the planning team more effective. Delivering Measureable Productivity and ROI

Figure 4: The A3 Executive Dashboard presents real time analytical data drawn from OLAP database models.

Leverages Essbase and DB2 OLAP security: Users can employ the same user names and passwords as for their OLAP engines.

A3 Modeling Snapshot: Executive Dashboards

Being able to continuously monitor a companys vital signs is essential to a high performing enterprise. Executive dashboards are the best mechanism yet developed for delivery of these vital signs, or Key Performance Indicators. Not all dashboard technologies are created equal. Derived from complex operational data pulled from multiple sources, many dashboard environments cant create or display KPIs without extensive programming or customization. A3 Dashboards are distinguished by their no limits Excel modeling exibility. Administrators can access multiple data sources and display complex results without writing code.

A3 Advantages for Operations Personnel:

Quick Start: Managers are up and running quickly with zero-learning-curve applications. Better accuracy: Managers can include line item detail directly in generated workbooks, eliminating the need to cut-and-paste from Excel into a separate planning application. Speed: Personalization and prole management lets managers generate commonly used reports with a single click. What-if analysis: Supports both online and ofine analysis so you can use A3 while disconnected from the network.

The A3 Value Proposition

Founded in 1990, with headquarters in San Franciscos nancial district, A3 Solutions Inc. specializes in streamlining nancial budgeting, forecasting and management reporting with the industrys rst Webenabled spreadsheet application platform. Our core mission is to deliver highly optimized spreadsheet data management and integration solutions to enterprises

A3 Advantages for IT Personnel:

Supports corporate standards: J2EE-based application components integrate with popular application servers. Ease of deployment and maintenance: Centrally deployed, centrally maintained.

The Power of Spreadsheet Automation

By deploying A3 software, we not only improved the quality of our process, but cut weeks off our cycle time.
-- McDonalds of Canada

in the U.S., Canada and internationally, enabling us to provide our clients with an expertise and depth of knowledge unrivaled in the CPM, BPM and EPM marketplaces. During the past two decades we have deployed our open, standards-compliant Spreadsheet Application Server at some of the worlds largest companies, addressing their most complex Corporate Performance Management processes. Dozens of Fortune 500 companies depend on our software, along with hundreds of small and midsize rms. A3 Modeling was designed to make life easier for business people and IT professionals. Nearly every aspect of the program encourages self-sufciency. For example, posting content to the A3 Modeling Portal requires only basic word processing skills. The messaging interface allows administrators to quickly customize content for different groups of users. Users with basic knowledge of Excel can build spreadsheet applications very efciently. Creating customized nancial models no longer requires large consulting contracts and months of work. A3 lets you leverage your existing spreadsheet assets and business/domain knowledge to build these applications directly.

One of the exceptional characteristics of the A3 Spreadsheet Application Server is that it allows our customers to leverage their existing spreadsheet assets, rather than discard and replace them. Consequently, they achieve nancial control, security, and Sarbanes Oxley compliance faster, with more exibly, and at lower total cost than traditional packaged applications.
Robert Lautt, CEO and Founder, A3 Solutions, Inc.

Visit www.A3Solutions.com today or call toll free 1-800-666-2823 for a free Spreadsheet Efciency Checkup.

About A3 Solutions
A3 Solutions is a leader in the Business Intelligence, Corporate Performance Management market (CPM, BPM, EPM). Our agship analytic applications platform, A3 Modeling, enables more powerful Budgeting, Forecasting, Management Reporting and Executive Dashboard solutions that deploy more quickly and at lower total cost than other solution options. A3 Solutions agship product, A3 Modeling, is a single, unied platform that is based on unique technology called the Spreadsheet Application Server. A3 Solutions has headquarters in San Francisco, California and a European ofce in London.

No Obligation Financial Efciency Analysis

Find out for yourself why global enterprises choose A3 Modeling to reduce the labor associated with spreadsheet processes and enable fast, accurate decision-making at a low total cost. Improve nancial modeling consolidate your spreadsheet les into a centralized database so you can plan, budget, and forecast more effectively. Leverage existing Excel skills Convert your spreadsheet models into a shared workgroup environment controlled by an enterprise application server. Eliminate data consolidation hassles Put everyone on the same page by automating nancial and operational analysis activities.

A3 Solutions Incorporated
One Market Plaza Spear Tower - Suite 3500 San Francisco CA 94105 800.666.2823 www.a3solutions.com

2009 A3 Solutions Incorporated. Reproduction without permission strictly forbidden.