Coverage of
The 2002 Microsoft
Stampede Conference
By Geni Whitehouse, CPA 

Executive Interviews

Andy Kamlet,Vice President of Marketing, FRx Software Corporation

There has been a good bit of activity in the FRx world.  Biggest announcement is the formation of a new channel of "FRx Analytics Resellers".  This channel, announced July 1 will sell FRx as a stand-alone application to users of accounting software that is not directly integrated with FRx. 

In June, FRx released version 6.5 of  FRx Financial Reporting featuring (drum roll please...) XBRL. 

XBRL, now this is an area where Carlton and I have a bit of a disagreement. I happen to have a great deal of faith in this initiative, sponsored by the AICPA but gaining acceptance in the financial services sector, the International community, NASDAQ, all of the software vendors, the Big Four CPA firms, other key industry influencers and more...  I was involved in the steering committee for this group and have never seen a brighter group of people more committed to a common goal.  These guys, in many cases competitors in their day jobs, have worked tirelessly to produce specifications for sharing financial statement information electronically.  The impact on accountants and businesses is just starting to be seen as the banking industry starts working with this tool. Read more about these efforts here www.xbrl.org 

Other enhancements :

  • Budgeting and Planning. FRx has added additional tools in the budgeting and planning areas as well.  Their new versions of FRx Financial Reporter and FRx Forecaster feature improved integration capabilities which mean that users can go from the general ledger to budgeting to financial statements and back, while having access to detailed data via drill downs.
  • Express Link. A new wizard simplifies the task of bring data from the general ledger to the FRx product lines.  For example, a user can now summarize across account numbers when preparing budgets.
  • Human Resources.  Users can now create detailed forecasts including detailed salary and bonus information for individuals. 
  • Web Based.  FRx Forecaster is a web based budgeting tool that allows users to prepare budgets on their laptops, and then synchronize them for publication on the web.  It includes logs for verification purposes and check-in and approval processes.  Imagine, you can take those budgets home, work all night and check them in for review the next morning!
  • Publishing enhancements. Web port allows a user to publish reports over the web using Adobe Acrobat.

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