Cognos 8 Controller

Overview

Cognos 8 Controller improves performance, eases compliance

• Consolidate multiple, diverse ledgers with thousands of operating units and accounts into a single, common chart-of-accounts structure and s ecure a single, accurate view of key corporate information.
• Create reports rapidly to facilitate compliance reporting for IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) and Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404
• Evaluate financial results with confidence and accuracy across multiple countries, currencies, and legal entities, each with their own accounting policies intact.
• Reduce consolidation, close, and reporting cycles by days or weeks—with a single version of the facts and automated validation.
• Support better planning and forecasting—true, reliable consolidated management data, based on a clear link between statutory and management consolidation, provides a firm foundation for operational and strategic decisions. 

Product Highlights

• Sophisticated, global consolidation functionality —to handle multiple reporting and consolidation standards such as IAS and US-based GAAP; inter-company elimination and reconciliation; multicurrency translation; complex ownership calculations and financial consolidation rules.
• Fully aligned with Microsoft Excel —users can log in to Controller for data collection or distribution from any location at any time though a familiar Excel interface , accessing financial information as their security levels allow .
• Adaptable to your unique requirements —in addition to management and statutory dimensions, Cognos 8 Controller provides user-defined dimensionality that supports data collection and reporting on all levels including cost center, product, and customer.
• Deployable by finance with IT appeal — Controller can be configured and maintained by financial professionals with minimal IT support. Using the most advanced and scaleable Web and relational data storage, users can input, consolidate and access data quickly and securely.
• Add other capabilities as your needs require —The industry's most comprehensive and award-winning planning, scorecarding, reporting, and analysis solutions from Cognos integrate seamlessly with Controller to help you manage your performance even more effectively.

 Features and Benefits

For consolidation, compliance reporting and management reporting, Cognos 8 Controller offers unmatched power and flexibility. Built on an industry-leading, open-standards data platform and featuring built-in financial intelligence and advanced analytics, Cognos 8 Controller is a comprehensive solution that provides the timely, accurate information you need for performance management and regulatory compliance.

Monitor and manage your reporting process

Satisfy multiple reporting standards including GAAP.

• Provide critical financial data for the full range of regulatory compliance reporting, including IAS, IFRS, FASB, Basel II, and Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, as well as multi-jurisdictional GAAP reporting.
• Create reports by individual segments such as customer, product, or market.
• Track the entire reporting process from data capture and processing to printed or electronic output. Simple color coding indicates submission status.
• Generate an extensive audit trail to satisfy both internal and external auditors.
• Centralized management guarantees consistency and quality, even as organizations change, modify accounting policies, or acquire or dispose of assets and legal entities.

Consolidation, validation, and elimination

Intuitive graphics make it easy to track workflow

• Consolidate multiple views of the enterprise from legal, management, and tax perspectives, or in terms of budgets, actuals, plans, and forecasts.
• Collect and present financial data in multiple reporting and transaction currencies. Operating entities can use their own currencies, while corporate finance can present figures in whichever currency is relevant.
• Support any method of capital consolidation and perform staged eliminations in legal or management structures.
• Thorough validation process cuts lead times and ensures data consistency. Data can be readily reconciled for accuracy, with users notified immediately of any inconsistencies.
• Carry out inter-company elimination in stages, regardless of consolidation structure. Inter-company profit elimination can be automated, while profit margins are entered on a detail level (e.g., by product or product sector) or at a collated level with average margin per account.

A solid, scalable foundation for data collection and dissemination

• A single, shared source of strategic data offers accessibility and speed, regardless of user location.
• Critical information that resides in Microsoft Word or Excel documents, e-mail attachments, or on personal desktops can be linked to any data cell, and retrieved from anywhere in the system.
• Multi-layer architecture scales to hundreds—even thousands—of users. Designed to process massive data volumes, Controller also allows access by large numbers of users simultaneously.
• Centralized database ensures efficient processing and administration, and enables continuous feedback and enhanced decision support.
• Industry-standard platforms and databases —such as MS SQL and Oracle—ensure high performance, data integrity, and rigorous, yet flexible security.

Manage your performance from a broader perspective

Define and view your organizational hierarchy.

• Translate corporate objectives and visions into concrete financial and tactical plans. Model and assess the impact of alternative business scenarios by entity, business area, product, or customer with detailed “what-if” analysis.
• Built-in intelligence and a user-friendly interface easily accommodate mergers, acquisitions, or reorganizations. Structures and business rules can be updated once and are then reflected throughout the application.
• Embedded dashboards define critical success factors and link strategies to specific plans, metrics, and objectives. You can monitor and analyze results, identify shifting trends, model alternative plans, and take timely action.
• More than 200 out-of-the-box reports enable analysis from diverse operational perspectives.
• Realize the full potential of corporate performance management by leveraging financial data and metrics from Controller with the industry’s leading solutions for planning, budgeting, analysis, and business intelligence: Cognos 8 Planning and Cognos Business Intelligence.

Integrate easily with current and future IT environments

Controller handles all integration processes and uploads to Cognos ReportNet.

• An open-standards database serves as the foundation for the solution. Enterprise-class database architecture ensures both current and future support for your investment.
• Embedded Excel interface allows easy data entry, modeling, calculation, and reporting.
• Users can amend account details , entities, and organizational structures as needed, without extensive development or tedious, costly programming.
• Web-based Cognos 8 Controller handles all integration processes quickly and reliably and uploads data to Cognos ReportNet—Cognos’ enterprise reporting solution.