Accounting & ERP Solutions for Financial Services

UNIT4 is a global expert at helping financial services companies improve their financial management and operational efficiency … even when they are constantly challenged by business change.

Our customers include: insurance companies, investment firms, large banks, credit management firms, and asset recovery companies.

1. Managing Change in the Financial Services Sector

CFOs in the financial services sector are enduring an unrelenting series of changes. Whether it is new regulations, demands for transparency from investors, M&A activity or new growth opportunities in emerging markets, CFOs are continually challenged to adjust to changes while simultaneously being asked to do more, with fewer staff. UNIT4 provides the business software tools to respond to ever-changing market conditions and constantly evolving business requirements.

The impact of change and your financial system

While change can be good, it can wreak havoc on a financial system and your accounting team’s lives. Change can directly affect reports, financial processes, controls and the integration touch points to operational and front-office systems.

This keeps the financial staff under constant pressure to make sure financial integrity and compliance are continuously maintained. This can be particularly stressful if your organization has manual processes, relies heavily on spreadsheets, keep data in information silos or is using an inflexible and unsophisticated accounting system.

2. Choosing a Financial System that Fits Your IT Strategy

Depending on your financial management requirements, your operational needs, and your existing core business systems, UNIT4 offers different financial management solutions to support your IT strategy and help you respond to business change:

3. The Control Framework & Link Architecture

In the financial services sector, accounting systems must go far beyond the basics of bookkeeping to keep pace. UNIT4 believes that a financial system must literally account for and expect change, whether it is caused by an acquisition, a new set of controls or closing down a line of business. We’ve made it our business to set the global standard for financial software that helps dynamic financial services organizations adapt to changes simply, quickly and cost effectively.

With SAS 70 always looming and demands for transparency and compliance on the increase, financial managers shouldn’t have to settle for manual processes and flimsy controls. This can become challenging when controls and processes lie outside the realm of traditional accounting systems, encompassing new subsystems, manual processes, ad hoc spreadsheets and even new employees.

UNIT4 Business Software has solved this real-world problem by building a control management framework, which ties other systems, manual processes and authorizations into one visible and auditable process flow. The Coda Link architecture’s Control Framework simply “lays over” all the disparate processes, providing visibility of the control activities buried inside the business. It is particularly effective for period closes, where it can dramatically reduce the number of days and man-hours required to complete this major, recurring task.

4. Capabilities for the financial services industry

The following capabilities make Coda Financials particularly well suited to meet the specific requirements of your sector:

Single financial model

o Eliminates time lags, sub ledgers, reconciling and unnecessary integration o Instantaneous or perpetual close
o Allows for trade partner and agent netting

Real time reporting and visibility

o Up-to-the-second reporting of cash positions, client positions, profitability etc.
o Full range of reporting tools available from online browsing to multidimensional data marts
o Easy and secure Microsoft® Excel® integration

Multidimensional analysis

o Infinite ways to classify, measure, and analyze the business
o Flexible analysis of projects, business services, employee performance
o Unparalleled currency management and exposure analysis

Advanced allocations

o Flexible allocation rules to distribute administrative and service fees across products, services and companies

Real-time or batch integration

(for “joined-up” working with your custom billing and online information services applications)

o Expose all accounting logic, security and financial validation to any other application
o Provide secure, real-time accounting web services to other applications

Automated processes and controls

o Extend and automate financial controls across operational processes, applications and people throughout the organization
o Continuous, visible and auditable compliance controls
o Self-documenting processes and audit trail

Global – Multi-everything

o Multi-company, multi-currency, multi-language, inter-company
o Designed for diverse and global operations
o Independent close calendars by company
o Centralized or de-centralized financial operations

Contact us for more information about how we can help your organization embrace change!