Crystal Reports Replacement: Switch to Spreadsheet Server for Optimized Reporting

With margins tightening globally, finance teams are being tasked with reducing risk and improving profitability, all while maintaining exceptional levels of compliance. Under such tight constraints, it is now more important than ever that your finance team has direct access to accurate data from your ERP and the ability to quickly create drillable Excel reports for GL and other finance requirements.

Historically, finance teams have relied on their ERP’s native reporting for this. Although it suits basic needs, native reporting tools are limited when it comes to the in-depth, tailored reporting that your business actually needs to thrive. To customize an existing report or to create a new one with native ERP reporting, you still need technical expertise.  This can become an expensive and drawn-out process if you don’t have these skills readily available in-house.

Why Native ERP Reporting Software Falls Short

While recognized as a necessary capability, organizations consistently confirm reporting inefficiencies. According to a recent study on operational reporting, only 30% of surveyed organizations use native reporting tools. When describing common challenges with native ERP reporting, 47% listed the need for technical knowledge, and 46% said it took too long to create and modify reports. The inability to report in real time (24%) or drill into transaction details (28%) were also commonly cited as pain points.

How Crystal Reports Creates Risk For Finance Teams

The above challenges are particularly true for users of Crystal Reports. Despite having over a thousand standard reports,  the reporting platform for the finance team is rarely a perfect fit for organizations out of the box. Since Crystal Reports’ pre-built templates aren’t tailored to your organization, finance teams often find themselves adapting available reports with the help of IT or outside consultants.

According to a recent insightsoftware survey of finance leaders, 88% of teams are over-reliant on their IT departments. This is certainly the case if your team is relying on IT or external consultants to make custom reporting changes, such as adding columns or data sources. Delays like these that eat into the time you have available for analysis leave your organization at risk to faster-moving competitors.

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What to Look For in Your Crystal Reports Replacement

Finance teams are searching for ways to streamline the native ERP reporting process. While working from Excel might sound appealing, dumping data into Excel isn’t going to meet your advanced reporting needs. Not only is it time-consuming to pull the data, but you’ll likely have to reformat it for analysis and cross-check for errors. By that time, your static data is outdated and no longer accurate.

Instead of spending hours or days creating a report in Excel or adjusting native ERP reporting templates, the right reporting tool can help you deliver your reports in a matter of minutes. An ideal financial reporting automation tool will:

• Automatically refresh your reports with the latest ERP data at the push of a button

• Allow you to access the latest information as soon as you need it

• More accurately track historical costs and aid future estimations

• Help your finance team oversee the organization’s financial health, profitability, and other operational expenses more efficiently

With better data access and deeper insights, your team will be in a strong position to provide information and feedback to your executives, and to play a more active role in your company’s decision-making.

Crystal Reports Alternative Spreadsheet Server Optimizes Reporting

Rather than fighting with Crystal Reports or sorting through time-consuming data dumps and manual data formatting, there’s a simple fix. Spreadsheet Server from insightsoftware allows you to create fully customizable reports and analyze key details, without losing the familiar Excel user experience.

With its direct ERP connection, Spreadsheet Server provides fast access to the data you need and substantially reduces the number of clicks and the effort that would be required if you were using Crystal Reports. Spreadsheet Server helps you to streamline report creation by combining and retrieving data from any ERP module directly in Excel. Once you have created a report, you can refresh and update it automatically, so you no longer need to create reports from scratch every time. This keeps the data you’re working with fresh and removes the chance for errors common with manual processes.

With Spreadsheet Server, you can quickly create cash flow and profitability reports. You can compare payroll, business expenses, and material costs against previous years to analyze changes. Review costs over periods of time to measure performance. You can create ad hoc reports on project costs and income, or drill down on the information that you need to make good business decisions.

Spreadsheet Server is equipped with integrated drill-down capabilities to granular ERP data that speed up variance analysis and offer fast answers to ad hoc questions. All Spreadsheet Server reports are drillable, allowing you to quickly navigate from summary data into detailed transactions, to investigate variances or answer your follow-up questions.

Analyzing your ERP data and producing reports with accurate data that everyone trusts ensures your company executives have the information they need to keep your projects and your company’s performance on track. Still unconvinced? Consider the following chart that clearly defines the differences between Spreadsheet Server and Crystal Reports:

Spreadsheet Server is Loaded With Pre-Built Content for Rapid Install

Unlike lengthy BI tool installs and upgrades, Spreadsheet Server installs in hours. Its intuitive user interface, easy data integration, and self-help systems get you up to speed fast. No more waiting on IT, you can get immediate answers to your questions with Spreadsheet Server.

Spreadsheet Server also comes with a range of pre-built reports that are better suited to the needs of finance teams than the statement-like reports available in Crystal Reports.

• The GL Report Workbook includes 12 General Ledger reports to cover common financial reporting needs. This is available to all users who have Spreadsheet Server.

• Prebuilt Operational Reports are another option. The tool comes stocked with operational reports to address your wider reporting needs and to complement the GL Report Workbook, all of which we make available to you with Spreadsheet Server.  On top of that, there are hundreds of queries available out of the box.

• Query Exchange is a library where users’ queries are shared inside Spreadsheet Server. Within this library, you can access hundreds of queries built by peers in your industry, so you can leverage these prebuilt queries and change their parameters to suit your needs.

Spreadsheet Server allows you to quickly adapt queries to fit your needs, letting you run reports in an instant that previously took hours to build from scratch. This means you have more time to analyze the data and generate insights.

Automate Your Financial Reporting with Spreadsheet Server, a Crystal Reports Alternative

Leave slow, frustrating, overly technical reporting processes in the past and replace Crystal Reports with Spreadsheet Server. Ready for faster reporting? Sign up for a demo or watch our on-demand webinar to see how Spreadsheet Server can cut your financial reporting time and let you focus on what matters.