Management Reporter - the new FRx

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One of the worst reporting headaches is producing output for the finance department.  The reports need to meet strict standards, be penny perfect, and the end user always wants the report to be in excel.  With reporting services in SQL Server 2005 this could be done by the IT department but the real solution is to let the finance types do it for themselves.  Performance Point went some way to addressing this and for those customers with Dynamics there was FRx.  So three ways of doing things - a typical Microsoft approach.

Then very quietly, in fact so quietly that you would only know about it by searching for it by name, Management Reporter quietly launched down the Microsoft slipway on 29th January.  Management Reporter is a free add-on to Performance Point users with software assurance. It's specifically designed for finance users to do reporting in Excel.  It has a lot of financial intelligence built in and support for regulatory compliance e.g. Sarbannes Oxley (SOX), International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), and Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (GAAP) to name a few.

Unlike FRx, your accounts don't have to be in Dynamics to use it and you can save the design as a reporting services report so information can be disseminated to other parts of the business who don't have Performance Point.

Technorati Tags: Performance Point,SQL Server,Reporting Services,Financial Reporting.