Hello,

I'm curious to know what third party financial reporting tools are being used with BaaN V0.c ?

I've been given the tast of helping our Accounting Department find a financial reporting package for BaaN V. We will be going live with BaaN V on September 2.

Currently we use Safari with BaaN IV but are having difficulty getting it installed on the BaaN V test box.

Any experience shared would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Lisa Durham
North American Bus Industries

We have been running Baan Vb for over two years now, and have found Crystal Reports to be fairly useful as a report writer. In fact, our users (mainly the ones in Accounting!) use Crystal to build their own reports and hardly ever come to us in IT with requests for simple reports anymore. We've also been using Hyperion Essbase as an OLAP tool for some time now and have found it to be a very good product, too.

We ran Baan Vb from 1999 to Feb 2003. Now we are on 5.0c.Wee too have found Crystal Reports to be very useful as a report writer. We've also been using Hyperion for some time now and have found it to be a very good product as well. My preference is Crystal, with the Crystal Enterprise Solution for BaaN, as a distribution mechanism.

Hi Guys,

How is Hyperion Essbase different from third party tolls and how easy is it to implement it?

Thanks

We purchased a financial budgeting product called Prophix (http://www.prophix.com) .

It has excellent budgeting tools, for doing things like allocations, simulations, statistical forecasting etc.

It has a financial report writing capability. It is an OLAP tool that can produce some very elegant financial reports.

We wrote export routines to take our ledger history, by dimension, from Baan and then import it into Prophix.

If you are doing complex budgeting \ reporting, it is an excellent option, since it has the financial reporting specific business logic already built into it.

John

Thanks jroberts

Hi John,

"We wrote export routines to take our ledger history, by dimension, from Baan and then import it into Prophix."

1. Can you please give me more details on the export routines, is it through exchange, or directly from databse etc and which tables are involved?

2. "financial reporting specific business logic already built into it"
More details please....

We export data from the opening balances, ledger history, ledger history by dimension tables.

This is a Baan IV script, but it should give an idea of what is involved.

Notes :
a. In the before program, open the file,
we incorporate the company number into the file name.

We export a header for the file each time.

b. In the function write.line() it actually outputs the file

It is a tab delimited file, but that is easy to change.


----------------------------------------------------------------------

declaration:
table ttfgld008 | Chart of Accounts
table ttfgld201 | Ledger Account History Totals
table ttfgld205 | Ledger \ Dimension Account History

| sequential file variables
string path.file(128)
string buf.file(1024)
long fp.file, tst

| session form variables
extern domain tcdsca display.ledger |Display Ledger Account being processed
extern domain tfgld.year oyer
extern domain tfgld.prod fprd.f, fprd.t
extern domain tcmcs.str9 hold.dim4, hold.dim1 |Varialbes to hold Dim 1-2 & 4 if blank default to UNALL & CAN

| finance math variables
domain tfgld.amnt net.amount, sum.debit, sum.credit, open.balance
domain tfgld.amnt previous.balance

| required variables for index selects.
domain tcncmp set.cono |company number
domain tfgld.ptyp period.type |period type
domain tfgld.dimx dim.f, dim.t |dimension range

| export variables
domain tcmcs.str50 ledger.dimx |ledger & dimensions for export
string output.year(4) |Year to output
string output.prno(4) |Period to output
| *************************** before program section ************************
before.program:
|get the current company number
| embed current company number into export file name,
| allowing for multiple company exports.

set.cono = get.compnr()
|open export file, re-write file.
path.file = "//baanwh/edi/prophix.export." & str$(set.cono) & ".txt"
fp.file = seq.open(path.file, "w")
if fp.file < 1 then
message("Can not open Prophix Export File")
execute(end.program)
endif
| set period type to be financial period
period.type = tfgld.ptyp.financial
| set dimension range for index selects.
dim.f = " "
dim.t = "ZZZZZZ"

|****************************** form section **********************************
form.1:
init.form:
get.screen.defaults()

|****************************** choice section ********************************
choice.cont.process:
on.choice:
output.year = "Year"
output.prno = "Mnth"
ledger.dimx = "Account Item_Group Customer Amount"
buf.file = output.year & " " & |Output year
output.prno & " " & |Output period
ledger.dimx & chr$(13) |Line Feed
tst = seq.puts(buf.file, fp.file)
read.main.table()
message("Export to Prophix Complete")
end()
|****************************** field section *********************************
field.fprd.f:
when.field.changes:
fprd.t = fprd.f
|****************************** function section ******************************
functions:
function read.main.table() |*****************************************
{
| set string values for the output year
output.year = str$(oyer)
| Read Chart of Accounts
select tfgld008.*
from tfgld008
where tfgld008._index1 inrange {" "} and {"ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ"}
selectdo
| display account on session form
display.ledger = "Processing G\L Account: " & tfgld008.leac
display("display.ledger")
refresh()
|Unique processes are used if it is a balance sheet vs p & l account.
if tfgld008.atyp = tfgld.atyp.balance then
else
read.pl() |Process for P & L Accounts
endif
endselect
}

function read.pl()
{
select tfgld205.leac, |Ledger Account
tfgld205.year, | year
tfgld205.prno, |Period Number
tfgld205.dim1, |
tfgld205.dim2, |
tfgld205.dim4, |
sum(tfgld205.fdah):sum.debit, |debits in home currency
sum(tfgld205.fcah):sum.credit |credits in home currency
from tfgld205
where tfgld205._index1 inrange {:set.cono, eriod.type, yer, :fprd.f, :dim.f, :dim.f, :dim.f, :dim.f, :dim.f, :tfgld008.leac}
and{:set.cono, eriod.type, yer, :fprd.t, :dim.t, :dim.t, :dim.t, :dim.t, :dim.t, :tfgld008.leac}
group by tfgld205.year, tfgld205.leac, tfgld205.prno, tfgld205.dim1, tfgld205.dim2, tfgld205.dim4
selectdo
output.prno = str$(tfgld205.prno)
write.line()
endselect
}

function write.line()
{
| this function actually writes the line to the flat file

buf.file = output.year & " " & |Output year
output.prno & " " & |Output period
ledger.dimx & " " & |Output Ledger & Dimension
str$(net.amount) |Output Amount
& chr$(13) |Line Feed
tst = seq.puts(buf.file, fp.file)
}

Baan has pretty much abandoned Safari as a reporting tool in favor of Crystal Reports (produced by Business Objects/Crystal Decisions). I know that Crystal and Baan have collaborated on improving the FST (Financial Statements) module in Baan to be more robust. Combined with the power of Crystal Reports and the Crystal Enterprise Solution Kit for Baan driver it can produce some impressive reports. We had been using FRX which had a defined interface to Baan and was specifically designed to produce financial reports. But, we are re-deploying our financial reports because new versions of FRX have a database interface that is non-realtime and has to replicated every time you want current data. For more information on the FST / Crystal solution, please refer to Baan document U7958A US "BAAN IVc4 Finance - Crystal Enterprise Reference Guide for BAAN IVc4 Financial Statements (FST)". This Crystal / Baan solution works with both Baan IVc and Baan V.

Gilbert Guymer
Database Administrator
Lufkin Industries, Inc.

Gilbert,

You say you're re-deploying your reports... What solution do you have in mind? I've heard Cyberquery from Cyberscience is really good with Baan, and real-time. They have an office in Denver. If you speak to them please can you let the rest of us know what their strengths/weaknesses are - thanks.

Jacob.

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear, but we plan to replace the financial reports developed in FRX using Crystal Reports. Thank you for your suggestion, but we will not be speaking with Cyberscience about Cyberquery at this time.

Gilbert Guymer
Database Administrator
Lufkin Industries, Inc.

Hi Lisa,

Ariel Corporation have Capella + Ariel which both plug into BaaN and are in place with a number of BaaN Clients. Have just returned from the UK SSA ' BaaN conference and these went down a storm there also. free 30 day trial available. In the USA they are HQ in Memphis TN www.ariel-global.com

Best

Dave D:)