World Vision, based in Monrovia, California, is a global relief organisation committed to improving the well-being of people around the world, particularly children. With the aims to help poor children and their families build a sustainable future, World Vision’ responsibility is to assure that the resources they spent are used according to their mission. Acknowledging the situation, World Vision realised that they need support in managing their complex set of financial data in the most efficient way.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church’s objective was to find a flexible financial solution for use in a nonprofit setting in more than 1,500 sites around the world, and to stay up-to-date with current platforms, operating systems, and databases.

Infor SunSystems 6.3 is now available. The latest release of this comprehensive financial management system is particularly significant because it not only delivers plenty of new features and enhancements but also runs on Infor Xi, the latest and most innovative enterprise technology platform from Infor.

Infor SunSystems is a comprehensive financial management solution combining technological innovations and usability with a depth of functionality achieved through decades of practical application. Not only does it deliver real-time financial and operational reporting and analysis; but it also helps businesses make better decisions and react quickly to potential issues with proactive alerting capabilities.

Financial Data must be protected from unauthorised access to safeguard the privacy and cyber security of an individual or organisation. Therefore, this is one of the biggest concern of companies wanting to protect their financial information. For businesses who are using SunSystems Cloud, TRG has already provided the optimal solutions in order to keep financial data safe from theft or data leakage. So what are those solutions that TRG has deployed?

No sooner had the US software publishers started venturing out into the international markets in the early 1980s than the need for software localisation arose. Microsoft, for example, opened its office in Japan in 1978 and expanded their business into Europe in 1979. Unsurprisingly, the significance of localisation at that time was not fully appreciated. When Microsoft introduced Multiplan (predecessor of Excel) to the Japanese market, they asked their distributor to localise the software into Japanese. According to a Microsoft executive, all they did was to “…turn over the source code library to the folks in Japan, wish them luck and go on vacation.”¹ As it turns out, localisation has become indispensable for any software publisher’s commercial success. Sometimes, however, it is the initiative of the distributor that makes localisation possible, as in the case of Infor SunSystems in the Vietnam market.

Companies used to rely on tangible, physical assets like factories, estates, and equipment to create value. In today’s globalised business, intangible assets such as brand values, intellectual properties, data, human capital, and customer capital have become the key value drivers for businesses. Finance professionals, however, still find it difficult to manage such assets.

By using the most current technology and keeping their skills up to date, management accountants can enhance their careers and their organizations.

In the July 2015 column, the IMA® Technology Solutions & Practices (TS&P) Committee discussed its list of “Key Technology Trends for Management Accountants.” While understanding and tracking the trends is critical, it’s even more important to prepare yourself and your team to identify, analyse, recommend, and implement the technologies that will bring your organization (and your career) to the next level. In a short video on the Competency Crisis website (www.CompetencyCrisis.org), IMA President and CEO Jeff Thompson rallies our profession to meet the challenges of rapid technological and regulatory change and to lead our organizations to this next level as management accountants have always done.

Infor Ming.le, is a new comprehensive platform for social collaboration, business process improvement and contextual analytics. This most innovative social media concept enables an employee to work more effectively as it brings social communication together with business processes. The core difference between Infor Ming.le and other information sharing technologies is Ming.le is fully embedded with the organisations main systems for example ERP and SunSystems.