Hyperion upgrades apps to meet financial reporting rules

Computerworld - LAS VEGAS -- Business intelligence software vendor Hyperion Solutions Inc. this week released a version of its financial management applications with features designed to help companies improve their internal accountability and comply with new financial reporting laws.
At its annual user conference here, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Hyperion said the upgraded financial management tools include built-in support for meeting the reporting requirements mandated by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. For example, the software can be used to speed up the reporting process and aid CEOs and chief financial officers in certifying the accuracy of financial results.
Matthew Geyer, manager of financial planning and analysis at Skyworks Solutions Inc. in Woburn, Mass., said he could see potential value in the new offerings. "The bar has been raised for all companies, and Hyperion's products are an excellent way of helping monitor business performance and compliance," Geyer said.
Skyworks, which makes wireless chips for cell phones, uses Hyperion's business planning application to create quarterly financial forecasts and then measure its performance against them. Geyer said the company also extracts data from its SAP R/3 ERP system and uses Hyperion's software to do analysis in an effort to find variances and trends.
Now shipping, Hyperion's prepackaged offering will support automated executive certification processes and includes tools that enable users to comply with other federal and international accounting regulations.
Hyperion also plans to support the XML-based Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) standard that it's developing along with a group of other vendors. Company officials said the specification, which is still being finalized, should help further improve the accuracy and speed of financial reporting.
In addition, Hyperion showcased upcoming Web-based metadata integration technology that uses XML and is designed to support replication of data throughout a company's systems without requiring manual intervention to ensure the information's accuracy.
John Kopke, Hyperion's chief technology officer, said the planned enhancements will make it easier for users to plug in third-party applications or extend the company's own tools to different departments without fear of creating multiple versions of data. The new features will be embedded in products that Hyperion plans to ship during the next 12 months.
Hyperion also announced partnerships with middleware vendor BEA Systems Inc. and NCR Corp.'s Teradata data warehouse software division. Teradata will resell Hyperion's Essbase XTD analysis engine and work with Hyperion to develop an adapter that will let Hyperion users access information in Teradata databases.

Read more about App Development in Computerworld's App Development Topic Center.