Integration & Web Services
Integrate your Best-of-Class applications
UNIT4 embraces the notion that companies need to drive competitive differentiation through systems.
Companies can no longer compromise – they need great operational applications and great financial systems. Therefore, organisations must have the ability to connect together their best-of-class applications, of all types, in a federated approach to running the business.
This best-of-class integration approach has been a hallmark of CODA Financials from its very beginnings. To discover more about CODA Financials’ powerful integration capabilities, download our white paper.
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CODA Financials – designed for integration
The CODA Link™ integration architecture is second to none, using modern techniques such as web services and XML to provide secure, real-time integration to your other operational systems. In a best-of-class application ecosystem, the Link™ architecture exposes all business logic and financial validation to other applications, providing accounting functionality as an internal service or in an internal cloud as needed. Companies can build their own specialised applications and use CODA Financials as an accounting component or as a financial hub. This allows companies to concentrate on adding value to their specialised systems, while simultaneously benefiting from a great financial software package.
Link™ Integration tools and components
CODA Financials has always provided unrivalled integration tools to support its best-of-class accounting engine. Now, any of your software systems can interactively “talk to” your financial system – no matter what hardware platforms, operating systems and programming languages are involved. We have taken integration to a new level by delivering the full range of our application functionality in a web services architecture.
Web services – APIs over a network
CODA Financials web services provide two-way Internet-based integration, which enables each individual component and function of the application to receive and respond to requests for it to operate, via secure internet URLs. This is made possible by the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) used throughout the application. Its complete flexibility makes it easy to develop interfaces to update, validate or extract financial data.
Capabilities include:
- user authentication, sign-on and sign-off
- account validation
- financial transaction posting (journals, vouchers, invoices, credit notes, etc.) including real-time validation and account balance updates across all affected ledgers
- master file inquiry and updates e.g. foreign exchange rates, customer and vendor address details, project attributes, etc.
- powerful inquiry and reporting capabilities at either the account balance level (e.g. request summarised income statement for a business unit or product line) or transaction detail level (e.g. request list of unpaid invoices for a specified customer)
- fixed asset inquiries and updates
- accounting functions available as a service (such as reconciliation) to external applications.
The potential benefits for UNIT4 customers, system integrators and industry-specific solution providers of adopting CODA Financials in a web services architecture are enormous. Proven world-class financial accounting functionality can now be rapidly embedded within an overall solution, with client and “feeder” servers running on any operating system (Windows®, LINUX, J2EE, IBM, mobile platforms) or device form factor (desktop PC, web browser, server, mainframe, mobile device or handheld). With no UNIT4 software required on the client devices and a de-coupled, standard-based programming interface, different components of the overall solution can be upgraded and modified independently to meet changing business requirements.
XMLi - flexibility to link data, functions or whole programs
With the growing use of XML as the standard way to exchange data between applications, UNIT4 created its XMLi linking tools to create an extremely flexible interface between our financial application and other business systems. It opens up the functionality of the CODA Financials server, to enable the reading, writing and routing of XML documents for individual or bulk data transfers. For maximum flexibility, the in-built XML router can be accessed via various interfaces to provide ready-made compatibility with the most common software system environments.
Table Link – integration for users
Table Link is a simple tool for getting data in and out of financials, day to day – without needing IT intervention. Table Link routes data between external systems and your CODA Financials application, via intermediary tables from which the data is then routed into the correct database tables of your CODA Financials application. It performs all the data validation and business rule checks as if you entered the data yourself. Table link is ideal for bulk data and master record loading.
CODA XL – integration with Microsoft® Excel®
CODA XL is a user-friendly tool that combines the power and control of CODA with the familiarity and convenience of Microsoft® Excel® – enabling you to output, work with, display, share and even input your data, more easily from inside Excel®. It gives you reporting that harnesses the advantages of spreadsheets but overcomes their usual weaknesses and complexities. It feeds your reports with real-time data and makes them far easier to maintain and share.
XL is one of a group of complementary applications that help CODA Financials users make the most of Microsoft® Excel® skills that many already have in place – offering significant time and money savings for the whole organisation.
CODA XL provides:
- Reporting on a single, secure and current version of the truth.
Because XL applies the security and validation settings of your source CODA Financials application, you only need to create one version of the reports for instant online distribution – safe in the knowledge that each recipient will only be able to see the data for which they already have permission. It also means that you can refresh an entire report pack with the latest figures from the books – at a single click – and easily drill down into further detail. - Straightforward administration and security with useful “Toolkit” components.
Additional administrative flexibility and control provide security settings to control which functions each user is allowed to access. - Enhanced scheduling and distribution
The XL report scheduler and distributor module allows you to schedule Microsoft® Excel® and XL reports with the option to specify the destination and file type. Reports can be output to a SharePoint® site, where alerts can be configured, or to a task in our Control framework. - Easy data entry from within Excel®, eliminating the need to rekey or cut & paste.
With the simple point-and-click/drag-and-drop tools, you can quickly create re-useable templates that will post transactions straight to the books from your existing spreadsheets, with full CODA security and without needing any programming or IT support! Using XL is also an excellent way to securely upload budget and forecast revisions.
CODA Financials integration summary
The Link™ integration architecture is second to none, using modern techniques such as web services and XML to provide secure, real-time integration to your operational systems. The architecture delivers impact-free integration with your other key business systems; providing you the type and level of tool that best suits your needs.
The advantages of our best-of-class integration approach include:
- Fast, efficient implementation – getting your solution up and running quickly.
- Easier maintenance – pain-free, backwards-compatible upgrades, keep your existing links to other systems working, so that you need never be stuck on an old release ever again!
- Cost savings – enabling our solutions to work with the systems you already have. This minimises the need for additional IT infrastructure and intervention, as well as the associated or indirect implementation and support costs.
- Future friendly – offering the reassurance that choosing CODA Financials will not restrict your current or future IT strategy. Our tools keep you ready and able to seize new technology opportunities as they arise.
- Greater efficiency – streamlining day-to-day interactions between systems and reducing manual rekeying of data.
- Flexible deployment – with CODA Financials, you have the option of embedding our products or functions within your existing systems to provide a single, seamless and familiar working environment for users.
- Improved visibility – removing the barriers between systems provides the infrastructure for effective data management. With this foundation in place, you can then gather, combine and analyse data from systems across your organisation.
- Built-in security – preserving and applying your financial system- and user-access settings to ensure data control and integrity is maintained.