Unit4

From best practice advice, system optimisation and configuration through to migration from legacy systems, Millennium Consulting enables organisations to realise maximum return on their Unit4 Financials investment. For expert input from an Elite Unit4 partner, speak to us today.

For customers with high transactional volumes, the adoption of best practices around Unit4 Financials archiving allows them to significantly improve system performance and save storage space. A recent project undertaken by Millennium Consulting demonstrates the positive impact of archiving for Unit4 Financials users.

Read on to discover what we found, along with practical tips on addressing common archiving issues.

Recently, Millennium Consulting undertook a company archival project for a global player in the pharmaceutical industry. The period covered was from 1995 to 2015.

The archiving exercise revealed that more than half of the documents within the organisation’s database were capable of being stored more efficiently.. Through the project, we were able to free up a significant amount of disk space within the production database but more significantly, we de-risked the organisation’s accounting solution against performance degradation over time.

At the conclusion of the project, we found that the archive tables on the database amounted to a significant 2.2GB of space. In total, 821,773 documents were archived representing 58% of the total documents within that company.

Most of the customers we speak to say that the volume of financial data they are processing is growing year by year. This is partly down to organic development, i.e., as an organisation matures, the number of transactions it is involved in intends to increase as a matter of course. But other trends are also in play here. Notably, for compliance and performance management reasons, businesses recognise the value of capturing a much wider range of granular data relating to individual transactions. The flipside, of course, is that more data means a greater burden on storage capacity and system performance.

• Archive all dormant companies, initially to the internal database using arc tables. Straight after internal archiving, you can then transfer these tables to the external archive database.

• Externally archive all live companies, except for the last four or five years. Again, you need to archive internally before transferring the tables to the external database.

• Archive to the internal database all live companies, apart from the last two full years.

• We recommend leaving in the current books all live companies for the last two full years.

If you follow this approach, then at each financial year end, you need to undertake the following:

• Archive to the internal database the third oldest year (e.g., at the end of 2021, you would internally archive 2019)

• Archive to the external database the sixth oldest year (e.g., at the end of 2021, you would externally archive 2016)

You can learn more about the archiving function for Unit4 Financials in this brief demonstration video:

With any accounting or financial management solution, regular archiving helps you keep control over the size of your datasets, speed up processing times and ensure ongoing optimum software performance.

In this blog post, discover how archiving works in Unit4 Financials by Coda and the difference between the two types of archiving available.

There are two types of archiving:

Internal archiving

With internal archiving, information continues to reside within your main Unit4 Financials production database.

Tables in the internal archive are given an “arc” prefix. The transactions within these internally-archived tables can still be accessed through enquiries. To search archived items, all you need to do is change your selector to ‘archive’ instead of ‘books’.

External archiving

External archiving involves moving data from the Unit4 Financials production database to a separate archive database. Note however, that this archive database still resides on the same database server. As with internal archiving, externally archived data is held in “arc” tables. To do external archiving, you first must do internal archiving.

With any accounting system, the larger the dataset, the longer it takes to process requests (e.g. queries, searches and transactional reports). Especially if your Unit4 Financials users are experiencing a gradual drop-off in response speed over time, it’s a sign that archiving is likely overdue.

To avoid having to routinely process potentially millions of lines of irrelevant data for each request, it’s certainly worth focusing on the following:

• Establishing an archiving policy

Matters to consider here include whether and how often users need to query data that is over a year or two old. You should also look at how often your AP/AR teams need to query transactions paid/matched over a year ago.

• Ensuring a correct archiving set-up

As a start, you need to ensure the archiving feature in your Unit4 Financials system has been activated and configured according to your needs.

In short, yes. When you have archived your data in Unit4 Financials, that data remains searchable.

When you submit a query on the system, you have the option to search live data only, or include archived data. For most users, the majority of day-to-day queries relate only to recent data. So for these queries, users can stick with the default live data search setting. Regular archiving means that the system does not have to trawl through swathes of irrelevant data, thereby helping to maintain optimal search response times on routine tasks. On those occasions where you need to check historical data, you can simply switch the query type to include archived information.

This brief video further illustrates the differences between each archiving method to help you choose between the two. It covers the issues that commonly arise in archiving financial information and how you can resolve them within the system. We also share a case study illustrating the benefits of archiving.

Here’s a closer look at the latest version’s new Provisional Year End and Year End Undo functions, and the benefits these will bring to your reporting procedures. 

So, what has changed?

• A new Provisional Year End function. This performs all the processing of a full year end, but without closing the year in question, so you can continue posting to that year. 
• A Year End Undo function. You can now undo a year end after it has been closed. Having effectively unlocked it, you are then free to post to the year in question. 

Provisional Year End function 

This new provisional mode option gives organisations more control over year-end. No longer do you have to wait for the auditors to give the green light before running a ‘once-and-for-all’ process. Instead, you can create and update a provisional version at any time within the system, and subsequently close it when you are ready.

If a requirement for further adjustment is flagged up after close, the undo function makes it easy to rectify it. 

The new functionality is only available to users who have upgraded to Unit4 Financials 2020 / Continuously Release (previously known as Version 15). Under this latest software version, users have a choice of two modes for running a year end: provisional or full.

Undo Year End function 

The new undo year end feature in Unit4 Financials Continuous Release is a further useful addition to the system’s functionality. It means you can now undo both provisional and full year ends. 

When activated, the undo function cancels all year end journals posted to the final period for the latest year in which a year end has been run, as well as to the opening period of the following year. If a full year end is undone, then the minimum year will be reset to the previous year. 

Benefits for finance teams 

The new provisional mode gives finance officers a much greater degree of flexibility in the timing of their year end process. 

Previously, launching the year end process always meant closing the year, which in turn generally meant the process could not be triggered unless and until the auditors had completed their final checks. Now, you have the option of running a report at any time of your choosing. As well as being a useful internal resource for finance, there may also be wider situations where the ability to rapidly generate a provisional year end will be useful, such as updating the executive team or providing information to external stakeholders. 

Furthermore, year end close traditionally meant that the accounts for the year in question were locked down for further adjustments. The undo year end function provides a useful failsafe measure: if a discrepancy is discovered further down the line, you have the option of rectifying it quickly and easily. 

Watch these new functions in action 

A painless Unit4 Financials upgrade starts here 

Are you currently running Unit4 Coda Financials V13 or earlier? With support for these legacy versions now withdrawn, this is the time to upgrade. 

Millennium Consulting specialises not only in ensuring the upgrade process is a seamless one, but also in ensuring your upgraded solution is fully aligned with what your organisation wants to achieve. To explore your upgrade options, contact us today.   

In this blog post discover how the Unit4 Financials Homepage Portal can transform the user experience, enabling easier navigation, faster processing, and more effective day-to-day task management.

The Homepage Portal is available on Unit4 Financials V12 onwards.

If you are a user who has been allocated a Homepage Portal, your default screen when logging onto the system will look something like this:

It’s refreshingly simple, comprising of three elements:

Tabs. The tabs are pages relating to distinct operational areas; in this case, Finance & Assets, Purchasing, Invoice Matching and Billing. The Portal is completely customisable, so you can match the tabs to the individual user’s role and responsibilities. For example, in the case of a team member whose sole responsibility is administering incoming invoices, the portal might include just a single tab: Accounts Payable.

Frames. The frames are used to group together similar content providers (see below) by subject area.

Content providers. Clicking on a content provider will take you directly to a specific report or function. For instance, under the Nominal processes frame within the Finance & Assets tab, a user can instantly navigate to Enquiries, Journal Input, Bank Reconciliation, Currency Revaluation or Intercompany Adjustments, simply by clicking on the relevant content provider.

Watch how the Portal speeds up task performance

Watch a demonstration of a search carried out from the main menu, and the same search executed via the Portal model.

The Portal approach is significantly more effective at taking users exactly directly where they need to be. There’s far less manual entry and toggling through presenters and selectors. On an individual user level, it’s quicker and easier. And once you apply it to a large finance team, all of whom execute dozens of processes and queries a day, it can make a huge difference to organisational productivity.

Portal setup

Portals are set up at system administrator-level. Before you start to set up a Portal, we recommend that you have a sketch map of the way you want the menus to be displayed, and the content.

Unlocking Unit4 Financials expertise

If you would like expert input on Homepage configuration, we’re here to help.
Whether you are looking for ‘easy wins’ from your existing setup, best practice advice on the platform’s latest functionality or a complete re-implementation, Millennium Consulting can provide the support you need. To access unrivalled expertise from a Unit4 Elite Partner, speak to us today.