Sage Business Intelligence

Avoid making bad decisions with business intelligence (BI) – your source for accurate, real-time information collected from your enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

The Benefits of Business Intelligence

With a BI system, you can become an efficiently operated, stand-out business that overshadows its competitors.

Effective BI systems allow you to:

• Improve business processes
• Reduce costs
• Improve workforce effectiveness
• Facilitate the use and analysis of information
• Better manage change
• Expand customer relationships

A good business intelligence system eliminates double entry and other repetitive – and error-prone – processes while simultaneously streamlining data gathering and improving other business processes.

Every employee in your workforce plays a part in the flow of business information and the carrying out of business processes. BI, therefore, is most beneficial when utilized by all employees.

The Two Types of Business Intelligence

There are two types of business intelligence: Strategic Business Intelligence and Operational Business Intelligence.

Strategic Business Intelligence

The best decisions are made when you gather strategic information, analyze it, and combine it with what you already know. Strategic business intelligence gives you the tools you need to do this – interactive, graphic solutions with dashboards that allow you drill down, find important data, and analyze it.

Operational Business Intelligence

Operational business intelligence offers your employees the details they need to perform their business tasks efficiently. The details they need – and that operational business intelligence provides – include:

• Events that have occurred
• The responses to those events
• What, if any, are necessary additional responses

A good business intelligence system should have both types of business intelligence.

Business Insights Suite

Business Insights Explorer gives you a grid interface that spans multiple data elements in a single view. Predefined views are included for sales order, accounts receivable, general ledger, accounts payable, bill of materials, inventory management, and purchase order. There are visual data representations to illustrate trends, and you can drill down as far as the transaction level. Business Insights Suite even allows you to access Sage 100cloud (formerly Sage 100c, Sage 100, MAS 90) tasks without returning to the menu.

Business Insights Reporter offers report templates that are customizable to give you the information you want. It’s easy to create calculated fields and simple to design personalized layouts.

Business Insights Dashboard presents information in such a way that you can instantly assess the state of your business. Its flexibility allows you to view the dashboard in the Sage 100cloud Business Desktop and/or in Microsoft® Internet Explorer® or Microsoft® Outlook®. The wizard-based customization tool offers you 15 pre-defined reports to choose from as well as automatically refreshing the data so your information is always current.

Sage ERP Intelligence Reporting

The Sage ERP Intelligence Reporting module is for those who prefer analyzing information in Excel. Basic report templates are provided, including financial analysis reports, dashboard analysis, general ledger transaction details, inventory master, purchase master, and sales master. Custom reports are also available for Sage 100cloud, Sage 500 and Sage X3.

Alerts and Workflow

Sage Alerts and Workflow responds to user-defined critical business functions and automatically performs the appropriate response. You can set up custom alerts and choose their form of delivery – email, fax, pager, cell phone, dashboard, screen pop-up, or all of the above. In addition to sending alerts, Sage Alerts and Workflow generates and delivers forms, documents, and reports, including invoices, purchase orders, and credit reports.

Effective business intelligence systems require time and effort. It takes organization and focus to set up the specific dashboards, reports, alerts, etc. that you need – but the rewards of a well thought out BI system are worth the effort.