By using SAS Financial Intelligence, the finance department can deliver a comprehensive perspective for performance management and transform itself into a confident, trusted adviser that supplies valuable intelligence to the entire enterprise, the company says.
 
SAS Financial Intelligence is our biggest SAS 9 solution launch to date, saysJim Goodnight, CEO of SAS. With new government regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Basel II and International Financial Reporting Standards, CFOs have both increased organisational power and added responsibility. With this new focus on finance, organisations need to have unwavering confidence in the financial data that they create and in the analysis of this data for making timely and accurate business decisions. SAS Financial Intelligence helps CFOs prepare for the unexpected by providing better enterprise planning and optimising performance management, he says.
 
CFOs need to anticipate and respond effectively to changes in business and market conditions. To do so, CFOs require a cost-effective way to gather, analyse and report accurate and timely financial information.

SAS Financial Intelligence helps CFOs plan better by providing integrated forecasting, optimisation and planning capabilities delivered through one common platform: the SAS 9 Intelligence Platform, he adds.
 
The suite of SAS Financial Intelligence solutions is designed to collect and consolidate financial data from across the enterprise, while providing time for value-added analysis and planning.

According to the company, finance groups can develop accurate, cost-driven and demand-driven forecasts, and then complement those forecasts with alternative cost and profit scenarios, helping to develop an informed opinion on how to adapt rapidly to any business situation.
 
John Hagerty, vice-president at AMR Research, says he observed three top concerns for CFOs. The first is alignment and accountability, the second is risk management, and the third is managing and communicating business performance. Faced with these challenges, CFOs need systems that integrate financial data and performance management while helping them meet current and new regulations. SAS Financial Intelligence fits very nicely into a potential technology framework for a CFO.
 
SAS Financial Intelligence equips CFOs with the intelligence to address regulatory compliance, financial transparency, strategic planning and corporate governance, reinforcing their role as a trusted enterprise wide adviser.

Using the suites scalable repository and compliance dashboard, compliance officers can manage and reduce the risks associated with non-compliance, and respond swiftly to changes in market conditions.

With SAS Financial Intelligence, finance executives can collect and consolidate financial data easily and quickly from operational systems, thus establishing appropriate financial transparency.

By integrating the most complete and powerful predictive analytics on the market today the solution offers organisations unique capabilities for forecasting and optimizing financial operations.
 
 
In addition to SAS Financial Management and SAS Strategic Performance Management, other solutions within the SAS Financial Intelligence portfolio are said to include:

* SAS Activity-Based Management, enabling line managers to accurately calculate, model and understand costs, and thus profit, at the product, service, customer, segment or channel level of business.

* SAS suite of risk management solutions, assisting organisations in monitoring and managing operational market, credit and fraud risk elements and scenarios.

* SAS Corporate Compliance, allowing users to archive, track, manage, monitor and report financial controls for compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley and other corporate governance regulations.