Hyperion unveils industry's first solutions devoted to Capital Expense Planning

A module with both pre-built functionality and flexible customization tools, Capital Expense Planning extends the capabilities of Hyperion System 9 Planning software. Capital Expense Planning enables both financial and operational planners to collaboratively manage capital assets and related expenses. As a result, planners can instantly assess the impact a specific capital expense might have on general expense plans and financial statements - and take immediate action when necessary. The new module is built on Hyperion's integrated business planning framework, which helps to ensure accurate forecasts and enhances predictability.

Capital Expense Planning represents a dramatic improvement over simplified template solutions for forecasting, budgeting or planning because it delivers pre-built functionality that encompasses best practices, lowers implementation time and expense, and enables organizations to customize their capital asset expense planning application to meet unique business requirements.

"Hyperion System 9 Release 9.3 really comes through for finance teams charged with managing capital assets from planning all the way to retirement or sale," said Thai Nguyen, financial systems manager at Ask.com.

"The new Capital Expense Planning module empowers managers to see an asset from nearly every helpful angle. Powerful tools like this have a bottom-line impact on organizations trying to rein in costs and maximize their asset use."

"Although accurate and predictable forecasts are vital for any organization, many finance groups still rely on manual spreadsheets or customized applications to facilitate the planning process, with only limited involvement from the cost centers," said Hisham Malak, Channel and Marketing Manager at HSME, Hyperion's Middle East Distributor. "Capital Expense Planning is the first packaged application to fully automate the capital expense planning process and to create a collaborative environment in which finance and business operations work together to improve plan accuracy, predictability and accountability. By eliminating manual, time-consuming, redundant and error-prone spreadsheets, enterprises can trim planning cycle time, leaving more time to focus on analysis."

Capital Expense Planning provides financial and operational planners with an automated framework within which they can jointly plan for capital assets and related expenses. Planners can maintain granular control over capital expenses with pre-built functionality that enables them to:
• Set global assumptions, such as useful life, depreciation and amortization methods, and cash flow and funding incidences;
• Calculate depreciation and amortization;
• Plan for the addition of new tangible and intangible assets;
• Modify existing capital assets with improvements, impairments, and retirements;
• Transfer capital assets from one cost center to another using multiple methods;
• Plan for capital-asset-related expenses, such as costs of maintenance, repair, and insurance; and
• Visualize the impact of capital asset expenses on the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement in real time.

Because the new module is part of Hyperion's integrated business planning framework, all data entered via Capital Expense Planning is automatically integrated within an organization's main plan generated in Planning, so any change made in the module is instantly reflected in the general expense plan. This shared, real-time access allows planners to efficiently review the effect capital expense plan modifications can have on the income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement and general expenses.

The new module also includes customization tools and capabilities so planners can modify - or even completely redefine - any of the pre-built functionality, such as calculations, accounts and menus based on their unique business requirements.

The Capital Expense Planning module also features dependable, built-in security protection for data, calculations and global settings. Flexible settings can enable one planner to view data for a single cost center only, whereas another planner may be able to view, add, delete, retire or transfer capital assets across the entire organization.

Hyperion System 9 Capital Expense Planning is planned for release in the next calendar quarter. The timing of any product release, including any features or functionality, is subject to change at Hyperion's discretion.

For further information on the product, please visit Hyperion at Gitex Dubai 2006 at Stand: H9-1 in Sheikh Rashid Hall.