Unlocking The Value of Data Integration

By Brian M. Leale

Would you like to retrieve cost-effective and timely information from your current operating system? Or gather information on key performance indicators without the hassle of manually crunching the numbers? If so, you should consider data integration. Data integration allows data to be pulled from one application and imported into another so that information is shared between systems.

For example, a company may have a highly customized billing system but experience a variety of inefficiencies. The system may work well for detailed billing but not communicate with the financial system. Thus at month end, the accounts receivable clerk must manually enter customer invoices into the system. This adds inefficient, additional hours or days to a month-end procedure.

Through the use of data integration tools such as ODBC or Transaction import, detailed information can be pulled from the billing system and imported into the financial system. Billing can be done directly from the financial system, completely eliminating the manual step of entering each bill. The result: timely billing and increased accuracy of the information.

Another example of data integration is a business utilizing an outside company to process its payroll. Each employee's time was tracked electronically by department and project. The information was sent to the payroll company through the internet. Once the payroll was processed, the accounting manager would make a very large (hundred of lines) journal entry to capture the cost for each employee, by department and project.

In the above example, information is being captured but not shared. By linking payroll information directly to a journal entry screen in the financial application, the process can create a journal entry in seconds rather than hours.

Almost any type of business may have integration opportunities. The key is knowing where the data is and how to access it. The finance manager and the IT manager will usually spearhead a project. The first step is to start with a plan and begin with the end in mind. Next, identify the information desired, such as key performance information. Third, identify where the information is and where it needs to go. Finally, determine what tool will be used to gather the data and how to produce a report.

Using data integration tools, efficiencies can be achieved at several levels of the process. Data entry time decreases, more timely billing can be prepared, data accuracy increases due to less manual entries, and information is much more readily available. Work with the IT department to consider what information could be available through the use of the data integration tools.