Stanley Stuart Yoffee & Hendrix, Inc. - Microsoft Dynamics ERP & CRM Solutions, Business Intelligence Solutions

Take control of the future of your organization with Microsoft FRx Forecaster for Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Dynamics SL. Meet business objectives and gain competitive advantage with budgeting and planning capabilities that allow you to plan more effectively and respond quickly to changing business needs.

Microsoft FRx Forecaster is a Web-based budgeting and planning solution that can help your organization take control of its finances, contain costs, and prevent fiscal surprises. Equipped with Microsoft FRx Forecaster, your management team can budget and plan for the future more efficiently and accurately.

Setting realistic financial expectations requires valid data and current assumptions that are closely aligned with a sound business plan. However, business plans and budgets often fall out of alignment when companies create budgets based on the previous year's budget, using an incremental approach instead of linking strategic objectives with operational measures.

With Microsoft FRx Forecaster, frontline managers can build budgets based on their specific objectives and first-hand knowledge of market conditions. The result: improved accuracy and a higher level of commitment to the budget from those responsible for delivering against it. And, Microsoft FRx Forecaster makes it much easier to adjust forecasts and budgets given changes in the business climate, enabling these same managers to respond more effectively.

Involve the right people in your budgeting process. The collaborative capabilities of Microsoft FRx Forecaster can help your company save time and help improve the quality and accuracy of the final budget. Users can collaborate using features such as automatic e-mail notification of upcoming deadlines and a centralized bulletin board where goals, objectives, business tactics, and instructions are posted for enterprise-wide access. Predefined security assignments and routings safeguard your data, helping to ensure that sensitive information is provided only to those authorized to view it.

Through the use of memos, notes, and attachments, managers can understand the rationale behind important numbers and assumptions made by other department managers, helping reduce time spent in meetings. Furthermore, department managers can interact with each other to help ensure their budgets complement one another. For example, if a department budgets for a new program that impacts other departments, all budgets can reflect the impact of the new program.

Automate complex calculations. With the Rollups feature in Microsoft FRx Forecaster, reorganizing your company's chart of accounts can be simplified. "Rollups" reflect parent-child relationships within your data that control how your posting data is summarized. You can create Rollups for accounts, cost centers, or whatever accounting entities you choose to use in your application. Just define your Rollups using the intuitive drag-and-drop interface, and then run a simple Restate function to consolidate your data.

Feel confident about your numbers. Microsoft FRx Forecaster lets managers input their own numbers, helping to reduce duplicate entries and the potential for errors. Managers can readily make changes to their cost centers by entering data directly into accounts or by using copy/grow functions, calculated accounts, or spreadback methods. In addition to improving the accuracy of the numbers, Microsoft FRx Forecaster helps improve the quality of the numbers because totals and consolidated numbers are available for reporting as soon as they are input. If any problems arise or adjustments are required, changes can be made immediately by users who understand the numbers. Moreover, by simply entering a dollar or percentage of change, your budget administrator can make an adjustment that ripples through the entire plan. As a result, budgets can be completed quickly, allowing for more iterations if necessary.

Keep business performance on target. Microsoft FRx Forecaster helps organizations meet their goals by streamlining many of the tasks that comprise the budgeting process, including the individual creation of budgets, changes to the budget model, budget consolidations, and the collaboration of interrelated departments. This streamlining of tasks helps give you more time to construct a thoughtful budget that is based on valid data and assumptions, and therefore more predictive of the future. As a result, you can provide a higher quality budget with goals that are realistic and more achievable.

Budget and control expenses with greater precision. With Microsoft FRx Forecaster, budgeting and planning is time well spent. By accessing up-to-date and historical information from your organization’s general ledger and financial reports, employees can budget and plan with accuracy. This helps users and budget analysts save valuable time. In addition, it can help your organization shorten its budget time cycle, reduce printing and mailing costs, and create valid, accurate budgets that tie directly to your strategic plans and help you reach business goals.