Today, financial reports that only deliver results from last week or last month keep you looking in the rear-view mirror instead of the road ahead.

In the fast paced world we live in, you need reports that look to the future, not the past.

Real time information you can use to build business The out-of-the-box financial reports that come with most accounting software are built to summarize the transactions that have occurred in the past. Those daily, weekly, monthly and yearly reports provide the historic record of your revenues and expenses. Valuable? Yes. Enough? No.

Financial reporting really gets interesting when it delivers information that you can use to identify trends and help you make decisions that will affect future performance. With real-time centralized data that incorporates all aspects of your business, you can identify opportunities to change the course of your business. Five ways that you could build profits for the future include:

• • Find your next best customer by analyzing your current clients. When you can accurately assign all revenues and costs for each client you will know who your most profitable clients really are. Set your sights on businesses just like those money-makers to build a more profitable business.

• • Give more in-store shelf space to the products with growing online sales. With fully connected business management systems, you can use online sales as a predictor of in-store product success. Hold a special event featuring a popular online item to attract people to the store.

• • Increase the profit on your next project. When you know exactly how much money you made on each project, based on actual expenses and revenue, you can bid more accurately. Avoid those projects that you wish you hadn’t taken and focus on the ones that make money.

• • Close more sales with fewer people. When you know exactly when your inside sales team is closing the most business, you can adjust schedules to maximize their productivity.

• Create promotions specific to individual customers or groups. Sales data gathered across your customer base can help you predict future sales of individual clients. Offer promotions to customers based on what they are likely to buy next.

When you can analyze information from different angles you can change the course of your business.  A fully integrated ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system can give you the competitive advantage to predict the future.

Find out how flexible reporting and business intelligence can help you transform your business.  Let us show you what a difference ERP can make.