Product
Integration
All web services are highly interoperable and re-usable and there is an increasing number of such services in the public domain designed to provide information from up to date currency rates through identification authentication to consignment shipment status and the systems makes good use of these where relevant.
In addition to all the financial reports in the system being viewed directly via the web browser; any of the data in the system may be published using a web service in summary and detail forms and from here shared, processed (with full validation still being managed by Aqilla), printed, output to PDF or emailed as an attachment.
Furthermore all data entered into the system may also be imported using a web service. This approach supports the entry and amendment of source documents; the updating of status information as well as the entry and amendment of reference data.
Integration with Microsoft Excel
One way that the system exploits these web services is through the use of the Microsoft Excel Add-in. With this add-in installed, the user may very simply analyse live data, update reference data or import transactional data from an Excel worksheet.
Enquiry Functions
Maintain Your Data
In these situations, the external data can be imported into Excel and mapped to the layout required by Aqilla. This data is then added into Aqilla using the functions provided with the same validation as if the data had been entered manually through a browser.
Alternatively, you may wish to review data that is currently held in Aqilla, such as reviewing your debtor’s credit limits or updating you item prices. You make the changes in Excel to individual records and the changes are applied back to Aqilla.
Document Upload
Information may be collected from a whole range of external systems. For instance, payroll costs supplied from the payroll system, purchase invoices from the document management system, sales invoices from the sales order processing system, or even account balances from the previous accounting solution. In all cases this data can be imported into Excel, restructured if necessary to meet the requirement of the Aqilla document formats and submitted to Aqilla for validation and posting. Depending on the workflow defined within Aqilla, the documents may be saved for final checking and approval or automatically posted into the ledger.
Using the Excel Add-In is very straightforward. It is accessed via a menu option or via the tool bar in common with other extensions. Once a secure connection to the database is achieved by logging in with a user-name and password, a user can select from a range of functions covering the ledger, customers, suppliers, item lists as well as analysis categories such as department, project etc. When modifying information, the Add-In automatically identifies which records have been updated and saved into Aqilla.
Parameters set up in Aqilla can also be included in a spreadsheet as functions. This means for example that the selection of date ranges can be made to reflect that which is set up in the main database - making it straightforward to select data from ‘This Period’, ‘This Quarter’ or the current financial year for example.
The ability to reference a unique piece of data within a cell provides support for in-line editing. This is especially useful when updating lists of information such pricing on the items file or updating contact details on customer records.
Of course once the data resides in Excel it can be referenced for the production of graphs, tables, reports and further analysis combined with data derived from other sources. Furthermore, Excel can act as an excellent tool to consolidate financial data from more than one company or act as a gateway for Microsoft’s SQL-Server Analysis Services enabling you to enables you to query your most current business data using the latest cube functions to build a custom report from an OLAP database.