In Black & White (11)

3 questions to answer before report design

Jamie Black
Style & Substance
minute(s)When finance is asked to prepare a new report or redesign an existing report (financial statements, budget book, quarterly forecast, MD&A, etc) the decisions made can dramatically impact understanding. In our experience, formally dealing with these decisions (the design stage) is rare. As we have discussed in Style & Substance before, there seems to be little formal direction on how to design reports. Combine this lack of direction with an abbreviated, overlooked design process, and you run the risk of having some fundamentally flawed reports; reports that confuse, distract and obfuscate the data. When tackling a new report or re-developing an old one, these three questions need to be asked during the design phase: Who will use the report, What must be reported, and How should it be presented This article examines the best practice for communicating financial information and why adhering to it is essential to improve your financial reporting. Question 1 - "Who" Knowing who the likely user of the report is, should make a critical difference in report design decisions. For example, if the likely user is the senior management team, perhaps very general introductions and explanations are unnecessary as you can be certain they have great knowledge about the organization. On the other hand, if the users are likely to be non-finance experts, new to the organization (newly elected council members for example), or external to the organization, then the use of jargon or omitting general introductions or explanations may well be unwise. Are the users technologically adept? If so, providing the report electronically may be the best option. Electronic distribution is especially powerful if the board/council will want to make & share notes, and create action items based on the report. On the other hand, if the user is not comfortable with technology, a well crafted, printed document is likely a superior choice. Why does technology matter when designing a new report? If the destination is paper & ink, then you are bound to designing a report to fit on 8.5" x 11" paper, printed in portrait orientation. If the ultimate destination is an iPad or a computer screen, you may be able to abandon these constraints. Question 2 - "What" The first, most fundamental "What" question is "What answers are readers trying to get with this report?" This is an absolute prerequisite before creating the report. Consider some examples - If finance is reasonably confident that users of the report are looking to understand profitability, they will tailor the "What" to show the variables that are most explicitly tied to profit. In many cases, this is where finance's expertise comes in. Likely their experience means they have a very clear understanding of the relationships that affect profit. Now is finance's opportunity to leverage the report to communicate their knowledge to the user(s) of the report. If you are in the automotive sales industry, you might know that region, and product category most directly affects profit. You would then omit or summarize data if it confused the topic. Thus the design must allow the user to see the relationship clearly. Do they need to know how much budget is available for a specific department, fund or program? If so, this information should be displayed with priority. Too often reports are generated without first establishing very clearly what answers the user needs. If this failure occurs, end users of the report are often left to dump a report out to Excel to manipulate the data to find the answers they seek themselves. The next step in report design is asking, "What data should be included in this report to answer the readers' questions?" In our experience, these sorts of questions are fairly straightforward and easily answered by the finance team. Examples include: What type of data should be presented? Actuals, Budget, Forecast or all three? Revenues, Expenses, Operating, Capital What date range will this report cover? Current Year to Date, Current Period, Prior Year(s) What level of detail must be presented? Individual GL accounts? Or should the accounts be grouped on some basis? Question 3 - "How" For finance professionals, the "How" can be more challenging. This is because formal training on how to present the data and how presentation choices can affect interpretation is not commonplace. Consequently the answer to "How?" is often "Let's throw the data in a table with several columns and rows. That'll satisfy them!" As a means of helping our would-be report creators, here are some guideposts (at a high level) for how best to present our data. There are 3 different devices we might use to communicate our message: Tables: A table encodes quantitative data as text. Table are the right choice when: the exact value is important. For example, budget officers might need to know that Public Works is precisely $101,985 over budget. comparison of exact values is important. there are multiple units of measure to be displayed together. For example, the quantity of 911 calls, dollars of expense for the Policing department and variance against budget as a percentage. Graphs: A graph encodes quantitative data visually. They are best used when: the message you wish to communicate is best understood in patterns, relationships among and between quantitative values & exceptions. there is no need for precise numbers or to compare individual values. For example, budget officers only need to know that Public Works is approximately $100k over budget. there is a need to show much more complex relationships. vary large data sets must be presented. Narrative/Text: Complements graphs and tables. Consider using narrative text to: Introduce a topic, a problem, a business process or other item the reader might not be fully conversant on. Explain the graph or the table so the reader does not miss any nuances. Highlight or calling out a particular point in a table or graph. Label a particular data point in a graph, or columns or rows in a table. Recommend appropriate next steps or actions. In subsequent articles, we will delve deeply into Tables, Graphs, and Text to layout their use and how they fit into the best practices in financial reporting. If you are interested in further reading on these topics we strongly recommend a couple of authors who have fundamentally informed & challenged our opinion over the years. Stephen Few & Edward Tufte are both incredibly insightful and helpful on all topics associated with communicating complicated information. As an added bonus, the hardcover versions of their books are very close to works of art!

When finance is tasked with creating a new report, best practice for financial reporting says there are 3 essential questions to answer before you begin.

Tech for Execs: RDS & XenDesktop

Waldo Nell
Tech for Execs
minute(s)Microsoft RDS: Microsoft provides a feature that is built in to every Windows Server operating system called Remote Desktop Services (known as Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008 and earlier). RDS is Microsoft's technology to support thin client computing, where Windows software and the entire desktopof the computer running RDS, are made accessible to a remote client machine that supports Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). With RDS, only software user interfaces are transferred to the client system. All input from the client system is transmitted to the server, where software execution takes place. Citrix XenDesktop: A similar but standalone product called XenDesktop (replacing Metaframe) is available from Citrix if you need more advanced functionality than Microsoft's RDS. Some version of this Citrix solution has been around for much longer than RDS. In fact, Microsoft RDS was initially built based on Citrix technology, before they developed their own protocols. The core functionality is largely similar to each other. The primary benefit of Citrix XenDesktop over Microsoft's RDS is better support for audio, video and graphics. Citrix XenDesktop is more powerful and used by organizations requiring more fine grained control over the virtualization experience. See our recommended hardware specifications for your RDS or Citirix server, check out our other article.

Comparison of the two predominant thin client solutions RDS and XenDesktop

Thin Clients versus Fat Clients Explained

Waldo Nell
Tech for Execs
minute(s)Has it ever seemed like the IT folks spends their days making up arcane terms and acronyms? Every time you turn around there is some new three letter acronym (obligatory acronym: "TLA") or concept being discussed. It can be enough to cause the finance officer to let it all go in one ear and out the other. But here are two important concepts you should know something about: fat clients and thin clients. In this Tech for Execs post we are going to explain these terms to ensure that you have a high-level outline of their meaning and the potential value they provide your organization. Why bother with these particular terms? After all, they are hardly new technology and you are likely not hearing about them as often as the latest buzz words like "cloud computing". The reasons to care are three-fold: it is very likely your IT department is using or has recommended "thin client computing" to you (for good reason!). in many circumstances it can significantly reduce IT costs while increasing end-user performance. large CaseWare Working Papers files will almost certainly run MUCH faster in a Thin Client model. The Scenario You work for a government / university / corporation with many employees. It is very likely that most of your users have somewhat similar needs in terms of applications and files. All users would most likely want access to Microsoft Word and Excel, your organizations' line of business application(s), your accounting software if you are in the finance department and so on. Further, you have files that need to be accessed by multiple individuals, perhaps simultaneously, perhaps from many different physical locations. How does your organization deal with these requirements? There are numerous variations and exceptions with more innovations coming all the time. That being said, there are currently two predominant approaches that can be taken to meeting these needs. 1) Fat Client (Traditional) Model - only data resides on servers How it works: In the traditional approach, one simply provides each user with their own computer, install Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, etc. on each one and let everyone work independently. You start your computer and arrive at your desktop. Then you commence running your applications (Excel, Word etc.) which are using your computer's resources (processor, memory, storage etc.). If you have no network connection, you can keep on working with all the files that you have saved on the local hard drive. Things get more interesting when your applications need to use data off a server. When data is being accessed off the server, the following occurs: Workstation makes a request to server - "Please send me the data in this large excel file that has been saved on the X drive" Server pushes all the data (and if it is a big spreadsheet it might be a LOT of data) across the network cable to your workstation. You commence working on the spreadsheet; add rows, insert sub-totals, recalculate etc. This work is being done on your local machine but all saving or requests for more data are all going across your network cable. Again, when dealing with a big file, this can be very large quantities of data and therefore slow down the performance of the application. Pros & Cons: On the upside: Other users' activities on their computers have minimal effect on your performance. Minimal reliance on complex, expensive servers in this model. Typical use of servers in this environment is for file storage, checking & maintaining passwords and perhaps hosting a database. Users can be "self-sufficient" - as long as they have a laptop and the working data they need - when they go home on the weekend or if they travel to conference. The downside: Every computer needs to be maintained. They must be updated for security and bug fixes as well as the updates of each and every software program Each computer's hardware must be maintained at levels acceptable for the software applications they are going to be using. As the software programs require more resources, you must upgrade each and every computer that will use that program. If any data is stored on the local computer, it then needs to be backed up to protect the organization's data. If a new application is needed, it is likely that it has to be installed on multiple computers. Because each workstation brings all the data across the network cable to be worked on locally for each user, there is often a tremendous amount of network traffic. In a modern network this may not be an issue but if there are very large quantities of data or there are multiple physical locations that must communicate, the network bandwidth capacity may not allow for quick transmission of all the data required. Because of points 1 & 2 above the organization is committed to continuous investment in each individual workstation to ensure the hardware is capable of running the current version of the software. This is where the second approach comes to the rescue. 2) Thin Client (Virtual) Model - data & applications on servers How it works: In this model, instead of using multiple powerful workstations & laptops to run the application, all that work is done by one or more servers. Instead, end users are given terminals, sometimes called "dumb-terminals". Essentially all they do is present the user with a picture of a computer interface on their monitor and accept the users' input (mouse clicks and keyboard typing), sending it along to the the server for processing. All data, programs, and processing remains on the server. In many ways this model is a return to the mainframe model of the 1950s. There are two primary technologies to discuss that drive this model, one provided by Microsoft ( "Remote Desktop Server" or RDS) & another provided by Citrix (XenDesktop). If you want/need to participate in a conversation with IT more fully about these technologies, you can find the details here. Pros & Cons: The benefits of Thin Client computing are many: "Dumb Terminals" need little to no maintenance. Only the servers need to be upgraded & maintained. Only the server's hardware must be maintained at levels acceptable for the software applications and the number of users (more users = more horsepower required for servers). No data can be stored on the local computer. Thus data is better controlled and backed-up. If a new application is needed, it must only be installed once - on the server. Thin Client software is long established and well know in the IT community. Network traffic is made more predictable / even. Potentially depending on the data being presented to the remote user, network traffic may even be reduced. Thus even with minimal network bandwidth capacity end users may not experience any slowness. Especially when remote access across the Internet / VPN is required, this may be the biggest benefit of all. Because of points 1, 2, 3, & 4 the overall result is often much lower total cost of ownership for the organization versus the traditional model. But there are some concerns & drawbacks: If users need to deal with a lot of video & audio (especially creation & editing) the centralization of thin client computing can tax the servers tremendously resulting in poor performance. The servers (their software and setup) are more complex & expensive than the servers are in the traditional model. The downside of centralization is a single point of failure. Should your application server fail, all your users will be affected. To mitigate this risk, IT must build in redundancy which offsets some (not all) of the savings. Users might be tied to a terminal and not able to move around the office or off the network to perform any of their work. To be clear, your IT department can provide remote access to the RDS / Citrix server, but they will often be very concerned about increasing security risks if they do so. Impact on CaseWare: Very large CaseWare Working Papers files used in a traditional model (data file on the server and application on your workstation) can be very slow, especially when network performance issues get in the way. There are some recommendations to maximize your CaseWare performance in this model but you might benefit by changing models. Moving to a Thin Client model with CaseWare can yield major performance improvements. To note though, due to the internal architecture of CaseWare Working Papers, the closer the Working Paper file is to the actual application, the better the performance. And by close we mean not physical distance, but close in access time. The best performance will be obtained if the Working Papers file is stored on the same RDS/Citrix server which hosts the CaseWare Working Papers application. If your organization is not currently using one of these thin client solutions, and your only concern is CaseWare performance, we also strongly suggest considering CaseWare SmartSync. To get more tech tips for executives, be sure to sign up for our blog In Black & White.

This Tech for Execs explains Thin Client computing & enables finance professionals to understand the benefits both with CaseWare and generally

Navigating PSAB: Help is on the Way

Tricia Fraser
PSAB
minute(s)Navigating PSAB is a series of articles designed to help finance officers who report under Public Sector Accounting Board guidelines. Those that do so know that PSAB can be challenging. Why is it a challenge? Consider an analogy if you will: It’s like we (finance officers & accountants) are in a kayak, navigating a rushing river. The water in our analogy is the information that we must report on — both voluminous and fast moving. The banks of the river in our analogy are provided by the Public Sector Handbook. The Principles and Standards are the obstacles that you must navigate around; the rocks, trees, undercurrents and yes at times the wild animals. (Remember PS 3150 Tangible Capital Assets? That was a Bear!). While we realize our role as kayakers is to be quick and nimble, it can often feel like the flow of the river is hard enough to keep up with. Now, throw in a new boulder or branch and a crash can seem unavoidable. Just being aware of the projects currently being discussed can help lessen the surprise and impact of our ever-changing reporting environment and thus help avoid a crash. The value of staying current with PSAB is more than just reactionary. If you are aware and on top of the current projects being undertaken by PSAB, you can have a say in the direction that PSAB takes and ultimately affect the outcome of the process. In other words, you can ensure that the boulder doesn't sink your kayak and leave your struggling to avoid drowning. Watch here In Black & White for status updates and discussions regarding current and future projects undertaken by the Public Sector Accounting Board. While we can’t control the water, knowing the river and what’s around the next bend can certainly help smooth the journey.

PSAB reporting is very challenging. Our series Navigating PSAB provides support & guidance to finance officers who must report under the PSAB handbook

Best practices for communicating financial information

Jamie Black
Style & Substance
minute(s)Our appetite for reporting is insatiable. Every time finance professionals turn around there is some new disclosure required. Non-finance folks often do not appreciate how much work each new request entails. After all - designing the report and obtaining the right data is often a great deal of work and there is no magic shortcut (once the design is done however there are tools that can dramatically accelerate the generation of the reports). When designing some reports, we are constrained by a financial reporting standard (PSAB, GAAP, GASB, IFRS etc.). These standards are very prescriptive; they guide professionals about what data must be presented and how it is to be presented. What about those other reports you prepare and present that may not have such absolute standards to guide you? Reports like the budget book, management discussion & analysis (MD&A), and quarterly variance reports are often complex documents full of images, graphs, tables and narrative that must combine to tell a comprehensive story to the reader. Where do you get direction on what these reports should look like and what they should include? Very often the What is based on broad guidance from an authority (GFOA perhaps), past experience, custom, what your competitor/neighbor has done and your understanding of reader preference. Significant weight is often given to recreating the same information which appeared in past iterations, especially when presenting to board/council that are not finance experts. Our experience tells us your recipe starts with "that's what we have always done", and is updated based on the questions your receive from council or board of directors. And the How? The answer is the same as for the "What", supplemented by the Communication department. In many organizations, there is a Communications department that specifies fonts and spacing guidelines and such. Despite these "guides", there are still a lot of questions left to the finance professional to answer: Should you use tables, graphs or prose to communicate a particular point? Is a pie, bar, line, column, area, scatter, bubble, doughnut or radar chart/graph best in this situation? What colours should we use in our charts/graphs? Should we put labels in the chart/graph, below in a legend, or both? Finance & budget professionals who are given the responsibility of making these decisions may not be well-trained in the How, and their choices will affect how the data is read and understood. Consider the graph below: Is the reader now likely to better understand your data as a result of this graph? Unequivocally, "NO" is the answer. These decisions are far too important to leave to the flip of the coin or a personal sense of style, especially if you are presenting financial data to non-finance experts. In this series, we will provide finance & budget officers with best practices they should employ when presenting financial data. We will explore many of the Do's and Do Not's and will endeavor to show examples (good and bad) to illustrate the point. For example, not sure why we say the graph above is horrible? Continue reading this series and you will learn this and much more! To make sure you do not miss any of our Style & Substance posts, be sure to sign up for our blog today.

Finance officers are often unaware of the best practices in communicating complicated information. The result can be confusion, and poor decision making.

The City of Lacombe Saves $45,000 on Audit Services Thanks to CaseWare

Jamie Black
Success Stories
minute(s)Nestled in one of Central Alberta’s most fertile valleys between Calgary and Edmonton lies Lacombe, a historically rich and picturesque city of 12,000. The City of Lacombe is responsible for providing residents with essential services, utilities, and amenities including fire and rescue, water and sewer, transit, and recreational resources. The City of Lacombe implemented Working Papers and Canadian Financials as part of an effort to improve and modernize the production of its annual financial statements. Not only has CaseWare Working Papers delivered on those expectations, it is delivering time and financial savings well beyond the City’s expectations. Saving $45,000 in Fees “We implemented Working Papers in 2013 and used it that first year to produce the City’s financial statements, plus the statements for five of our entities. It was a complete success,” recalls Theresa Musser, Financial Services Manager for the City of Lacombe. “Shortly after we implemented Working Papers, we were able to renegotiate our audit services contract with our accountancy firm - for a savings of $45,000.” From Months to Weeks Like many municipalities, the City of Lacombe had been producing its annual financial statements using Excel® and Word®. There were literally dozens of complex and interlinked spreadsheets involved in the process that typically took four months to complete. “It was very time consuming,” Musser recalls. “With six separate entities to report on, we sometimes needed to request an extension in order to complete the filings.” Using Working Papers, the City shaved that four-month cycle down to just two weeks. “It’s so much more streamlined and straight forward now,” Musser notes. “And we’ve dramatically cut down on the paper used, since all of our data and supporting documents are now stored electronically in the CaseWare files.” Without the need to print and route paper files throughout the office and to and from auditors, the entire process is more visible, trackable, and accountable. Streamline Audit Cycle The City’s audit firm also uses Working Papers, which further speeds and simplifies the statement production process. “The auditors have easier access to our data now; they can quickly find the files they need to review, and can follow a clear audit trail to where our numbers are coming from,” Musser says. “Before CaseWare, our auditors were typically on site for ten days. Now they only need three days on site. We are realizing an overall annual savings of 25 percent. This is a huge benefit to Lacombe.” Now, rather than providing numbers and supporting data to the audit firm for compilation of the financial statements, the City is generating its own financial statements using Working Papers. “This is important,” says Musser. “It makes for a pure audit, where the accountants are auditing our work, not their own efforts.” Partner Adds Value The City of Lacombe engaged F.H. Black & Company Incorporated, a CaseWare Certified Consultant, to implement Working Papers. “F.H. Black is just fantastic at what they do. They thoroughly understand the software and the nuances of municipal accounting,” says Mussser. “They set up our templates, provided us with great training, and help us understand additional ways we can leverage Working Papers.” Leverage the Tool One of the additional ways the City of Lacombe is leveraging Working Papers is by using it to produce its Financial Informational Return (FIR) and quarterly financial reporting. “F.H. Black prepared the templates for us and now producing these reports is very straightforward and efficient,” says Musser. “We had never even attempted quarterly reporting before because we saw it as too labour intensive.” Improve Confidence in the Numbers In addition to the substantially reduced audit fees and a faster year end attributed to Working Papers, the City also has improved overall confidence in its financial statements. “When you’re relying on spreadsheets, you must constantly double and triple check formulas and formatting for accuracy,” notes Musser. “There was always a concern that as we copied worksheets, something would get dropped or broken. With Working Papers, we have no such concerns.” We Love It CaseWare has provided a much simpler year end for the City of Lacombe. Musser concludes, “Our auditors love it. Our Council loves it. Our Commissioners love it. And we love it!”

The City of Lacombe implemented CaseWare Working Papers & Financials and are realizing time and financial savings well beyond expectations.

CaseWare Feature Spotlight: Importing Data

Jamie Black
CaseWare Feature Spotlight
minute(s)CaseWare's financial reporting solutions have been providing massive benefits to more than 500,000 users around the world since the first version was released back in 1988. How? By providing the most sophisticated features in the industry. Each of our "Feature Spotlight" articles discuss one of these features. Importing Data Complex reports like annual financial statements, CAFRs and Budget Books are built from large, complex data sets. In fact, they may require data from several sources; general ledger data, budget data, performance measures (number of staff per department etc.), even sub-ledger data. In many tools, integration to your data sources can be difficult, time consuming and expensive. CaseWare Working Papers makes this process extremely simple. Not only does Working Papers offer dozens of direct integrations to popular ERP systems, it has a very flexible Import Wizard designed to bring data in from nearly any source. In 5 steps you (not IT and a room full of programmers) will have your data in CaseWare: Once you have identified the report(s) in your ERP or budget software that has the data you need, save it as an Excel or Text file. Identify the Excel or Text file to be imported. Define the columns of your Excel / Text file. CaseWare supports importing nearly every value and modifier you are likely to need: current actuals, prior actuals, budgets, forecasts, foreign exchange rates, and any groupings you may have already defined elsewhere. Customize the import process to create exactly the Working Papers file you need using the advanced specifications. Do you want to exclude $0 accounts? Round all of your balances to dollars?. Advanced properties can even be used to automatically calculate net activity from ending balances. Save all these settings so that next time you run the import (an hour from now or next year), all of these settings will be remembered! Want to see it in action? This 3-minute video will show you how fast and easy it is to import your data into CaseWare Working Papers:

CaseWare features drive massive value for users. Ease and speed of importing data is just one of these features.

Internal Control is Key to the Success of Government Programs

Jamie Black
In Control
minute(s)For most finance professionals, “internal control” is synonymous with activities designed to prevent or detect fraud. One example activity: segregating the tasks of recording deposits and making deposits. But internal control is a much broader topic than most of us appreciate. Internal Control is an entire process for assuring achievement of an organization's objectives in: operational effectiveness and efficiency, reliable financial reporting, and compliance with laws, regulations and policies. Segregation of duties related to making and recording deposits is a single control activity designed to deal with a single risk. The pyramid illustrating the internal control process illustrates the many elements that must fit together to provide a complete an effective internal control system. It would be better if we thought of a skeletal system when we hear the phrase “internal control”. Like a skeleton, internal control is the structure that supports the correct functioning of your organization. Without understanding internal control as a comprehensive system, it is much more difficult to maintain strong internal controls and thereby assure achievement of your government’s objectives. Need convincing? Consider the 2014 Fall Report of the Auditor General of Canada (AG). Chapter 6 of the report, focuses on Nutrition North Canada (NNC). NNC is a subsidy program provided by Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC), designed to provide Northerners in isolated communities with improved access to perishable, nutritious food. The program pays a subsidy to retailers in eligible communities, intended to reduce the cost of nutritious foods. In a CBC radio interview, the AG states the program “wasn’t living up to what it’s intended to do” and “Senior Management at AANDC focused on what was easy to measure instead of what was critical to measure.” In other words, the AANDC is failing to achieve its objective. Why? To recast the AG’s comments from an internal control perspective, AANDC failed to mitigate risks with appropriate control activities. Consider the following table, comparing the original control activity compared with a better-designed control activity tailored to help in achieving the AANDC's objectives: Control Objective Provide funding for residents of those  communities most at need Risk #1 The wrong communities receive the subsidy Current Control Activity Assess each community’s need based on historical use AG Proposed Control Activity Assess each community based on current need Risk #2 Subsidy not being passed along to consumers (kept by retailer) Current Control Activity Measure quantity of food being shipped to retailer and measure the average cost of estimated food consumption AG Proposed Control Activity Measure the actual cost paid by residents for the perishable nutritious food they purchased Table 1 - AANDC Control Activities Still need convincing of the benefit of the systemic view? Consider a personal example based on our skeletal system metaphor: if you went to the doctor with leg pain and numbness, what result would you prefer? The doctor prescribes pain pills, or; The doctor investigates, finds the cause is a compressed vertebrae and prescribes a back brace to allow the vertebrae to heal naturally. Clearly, the best choice is to find the cause and fix it. Similarly, armed with a proper systemic understanding of internal controls and how the various elements need to function together, finance officers are likely to identify the AG’s concerns as symptoms of a deeper issue. That should lead to an evaluation of the overall system of internal control. As a finance officer, you have the opportunity to have a profound impact on all aspects of your government’s operations, including program delivery. When you see symptoms of poor execution, look for the cause. A failure of internal control is often at the root of it.

Finance officers should leverage strong internal control to enable the success of their government's programs.

Your Guide to CaseWare 2015 Ribbon Navigation

Jamie Black
What's New
minute(s)Last fall we blogged about CaseWare’s move from menu to ribbon navigation in Working Papers 2015 . Read the blog entry here: CaseWare 2015 User Interface: Why move from menu to ribbon. At that time, to reduce frustration, headaches, and inefficiency caused by the changes, we offered a training session on the new interface. If you weren’t able to join us for the webinar, you can download our guides, CaseView 2015: Ribbon Navigation and CaseWare Working Papers: Ribbon Navigation. These visual guides will walk you through the changes so you can make the most out of the ribbon and ensure you remain an effective CaseWare user. You can download them both right here.

Smooth your transition to CaseWare 2015 and the new Ribbon Navigation with our free downloads.

CaseWare Now Officially Supports Office 2016

Darryl Parker
What's New
minute(s)Good news for those of us committed to staying up-to-date with technology: CaseWare International has announced that CaseWare Working Papers, CaseView, and Connector now official support the current version of Microsoft Office - Office 2016. We made a big deal about the importance of ensuring compatibility among your mission-critical software in a recent blog post. For us and many of our clients, CaseWare Working Papers is the cornerstone of the software on our computers, and so we held back from upgrading to Office 2016. Note that the compatibility is only officaly supported if you have Working Papers version 2015.00.164 and above, and Connector version 2015.00.050 and above. More good news: both the 64-bit and the 32-bit versions are fully compatible. Read more at CaseWare International's knowledge base article. Office 2016 comes with a refreshed user interface and better integration with internet services such as the new Smart Lookup feature. But for most users, the real wins are the improvement in sharing and collaboration. It's now more seamless co-authoring a document or analysis with your team members, but also moving from your desktop to your tablet to your smartphone is a smooth and simple process. Now that conference season is upon us and we want to be as efficient, effective, and reliable as possible in our travel, Office 2016 has some real benefits for staying productive in airport lounges and hotel rooms. You can read more about what's new and think about whether you should upgrade here at Microsoft's website.

CaseWare Working Papers, CaseView and Connector now support Microsoft Office 2016

In Black & White

Freeing Finance & Budget Departments from Drudgery One Article at a Time