Cognos Financial Statement Reporting

Link Source Data to Report Data
Every number in the final report links directly back to a single data source ensuring that there are no conflicting numbers anywhere in the report. And changes to that source number automatically cascade through the report. This ensures there is only "one version of the truth".

Use Prior Report as a Template for the Next Report
New reports typically contain the same sections as previous reports, reuse the same data sources (e.g., revenue, net income, etc.) and even recreate the look and feel of past reports. IBM Cognos FSR uses this fact to “jump-start” the report creation process. The latest data is automatically loaded into a report template that is pre-formatted, letting the user focus on editing the document rather than collecting, consolidating and formatting the data.

Powerful Built-in XBRL Functionality
IBM Cognos FSR users can easily tag financial data and commentary once and have it automatically flow to future reports. Users can extend the company-specific taxonomy using the Taxonomy Designer. And the XBRL Viewer lets users view the final XBRL report. All of this is delivered with the full audit trail and workflow functionality included in IBM Cognos FSR.

Collaboration
Each section of a document can be assigned to a separate user – so that any number of users can work on the same document simultaneously.

Internal Control
IBM Cognos FSR provides a comprehensive set of internal controls to ensure that the proper steps are being followed in the creation, submission and approval of each section in the document.

Audit Trail
IBM Cognos FSR provides a comprehensive audit trail – tracking each change to the document. With the IBM Cognos FSR audit trail, users can easily compare any two versions of the document to see what was changed, who changed it, and when it was changed.

Ease of Use
If your users already know how to use Microsoft® Word and Microsoft® Excel, then using IBM Cognos FSR will be intuitive and easy. IBM Cognos FSR provides a user interface that leverages all of the formatting capabilities of Microsoft Word and all of the calculation abilities of Microsoft Excel. With dynamic home page functionality, users can filter among report sections and view section status, workflow assignments and due dates, among others.

Workflow
A workflow process within IBM Cognos FSR tracks the status of each section of the document, with due dates and responsibility assignments. IBM Cognos FSR’s Workflow Condition feature ensures users cannot proceed to the next step if this is not allowed (i.e., the condition is false). The administrator can easily see the status of each section of the document, which sections are overdue and who is responsible for each section.

Rounding
Provides an automated method to round financial data to thousands, millions or billions while ensuring that all numbers tie out to the bottom line totals.

Business Rules
In some organizations, data may come from a variety of sources. IBM Cognos FSR business rules ensure that summary data in one section of the document always tie out to detailed data that may exist elsewhere in the document.

Output
IBM Cognos FSR supports a wide variety of output options including:

Data Integration
IBM Cognos FSR provides an easy-to-use method to pull data from a wide variety of data sources including: the leading ERP systems, the leading financial consolidation applications, relational databases, OLAP databases and Microsoft Excel.

Linking Report Information
Linking report information is one example of how users can create references to data or text sourced from other IBM Cognos FSR reports. When the shared data/text are updated in the source report (e.g., quarterly report), changes will be automatically refreshed in other reports that share the source data/text (e.g., annual report).