insightsoftware IDL
What is insightsoftware IDL?
Integrated financial performance management platform for financial consolidation, financial planning, operational planning, management reporting, regulatory reporting and analysis.
- insightsoftware IDL functions (BARC classification)
● = Function covered, ●● = Functional focus
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●● = Functional focus
About insightsoftware IDL
Self-description of the vendor
insightsoftware IDL BARC Review & Rating
Provider and product description
insightsoftware is a US-based global provider of solutions for the office of the CFO backed by private equity investors Hg, TA Associates and Genstar Capital. The company employs more than 2,400 people worldwide and serves 32,000 customers with more than 500,000 active users in 150 countries. insightsoftware was formed in 2018 out of a merger of Hubble by insightsoftware.com and Global Software, Inc. The vendor’s rapid growth in recent years has been driven by the acquisition of vendors such as Bizview, Calumo, Certent, CXO, IDL, Longview, Power ON and Viareport. This strategy has resulted in a broad portfolio of software solutions for financial planning and analysis (FP&A), controllership, and data and analytics.
insightsoftware’s product portfolio includes cloud and on-premises solutions for the key processes of today’s finance organizations: financial reporting, operational reporting and analytics, budgeting and planning, close and consolidation, tax and compliance, accounting and treasury, ESG, embedded analytics, automation and data management. These solutions can be used independently or in combination and are offered on the basis of customer requirements and strategic direction (e.g., use case, UI requirements, industry, global or local orientation of an organization, company size, connectivity to source systems, etc.). The overall objective is to enable the office of the CFO to connect to and make sense of existing enterprise data to drive greater financial intelligence across the organization.
Within the DACH region, insightsoftware’s FPM strategy strongly focuses on IDL and its software applications for FPM, offering professional expertise in all aspects of financial consolidation and close, planning, budgeting and forecasting, management, and regulatory reporting and analysis. Founded in 1990, IDL was acquired by insightsoftware in 2020 and has offices in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France. Today, insightsoftware sees IDL’s comprehensive FPM platform as a strategic element in its future success and expansion in the DACH region and bordering countries.
IDL’s FPM suite is an integrated platform and includes modules for financial consolidation and close (IDL Konsis), financial planning (IDL Forecast), operational planning, reporting and analysis (IDL Designer) as well as disclosure management (IDL Publisher). Complementary solutions for financial filings and prebuilt content for specific industries and use cases are also available. IDL solutions can either run on premises, as cloud services (leveraging Microsoft Azure) or in hybrid scenarios.
IDL supports scenarios for financial planning with IDL Forecast and for operational budgets (e.g., sales, HR, etc.) with IDL Designer. IDL Forecast is targeted at business departments, which often belong to a group of companies. Company-wide financial results plans (balance sheet, P&L, cash flow) at subsidiary or group level can be created. Therefore, IDL Forecast provides a predefined financial (planning) data model with intertwined business rules, based on relational data storage. Thanks to its tight integration with IDL Konsis, it is possible to immediately consolidate plan data (or actuals) while taking into account planned intercompany allocations. IDL Konsis offers comprehensive capabilities for legal consolidation (IDW PS 880 certified) including intercompany reconciliation as well as management consolidation. Extensive predefined business rules for financial management are available as standard in the solution.
Besides its functionality for operational planning, IDL Designer is also the central component of IDL’s reporting platform and rounds out the portfolio with user-friendly, web-based functions to create ad hoc and standard reports, OLAP analyses and dashboards. Its modern tile interface and Windows look and feel provide a user-friendly environment for designing reports and analyses with custom layouts that can be organized in a report catalog.
For additional requirements that cannot be covered by IDL’s own solutions, integration with other insightsoftware applications is possible.
Strengths and challenges of insightsoftware IDL
BARC’s viewpoint on the product’s strengths and challenges.
Strengths
- insightsoftware offers a comprehensive solution portfolio for the key processes of finance organizations including financial reporting, operational reporting and analytics, budgeting and planning, close and consolidation, tax and compliance, accounting and treasury, ESG, embedded analytics, automation and data management. Solutions can be used independently or in combination, processing data from various source systems.
- IDL provides a comprehensive, integrated FPM platform and portfolio for financial consolidation and close, planning, budgeting and forecasting, disclosure management, management and regulatory reporting and analysis that can run on premises, as cloud services (Microsoft Azure) or in hybrid scenarios.
- Extensive predefined business rules for financial management in IDL – tight integration of financial planning and consolidation (IDW PS 880 certified). Additionally, a web-based solution for operational planning including comprehensive workflow and annotation functionality, ad hoc reporting and OLAP analysis with data visualization options is available.
- Depending on the individual requirements of customers, insightsoftware’s portfolio offers additional applications that can be combined with IDL’s solutions, for example, while leveraging the new insightsoftware platform that connects solutions and provides centralized user management and data access.
Challenges
- Multidimensional operational plans with IDL Designer are integrated with relational financial plans and consolidation at data level with predefined routines for data integration leveraging ETL technologies within the underlying databases. Therefore, complexity is greater due to a delay in data creation and data use, as well as different environments, modeling techniques, UIs/UXs, data integration efforts, etc.
- The implementation of complex financial management applications leveraging all IDL modules can require the help of external business consultants. However, where required, these services can be provided by insightsoftware’s team of experienced consultants or one of the specialized consulting firms the vendor partners with.
- Before its acquisition, IDL was a local FPM specialist strongly focused on its home markets in the DACH region. While the product’s competitive win rate is good, IDL solutions do not have the global market presence to be widely considered for purchase. Prospects outside the DACH region with global implementation requirements should evaluate similar references and the vendor’s and partners’ local consulting and support capabilities.
- The breadth of insightsoftware’s product portfolio means that the continuous further development and integration of individual portfolio components with each other (e.g., IDL) is a challenge for the vendor.