Datarails is a financial planning and analysis platform for Excel users. Its FP&A software solution automates data consolidation, reporting, and planning while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.

Let's take a closer look at how your data flows though Datarails and the major components that make it work:

Input Data

Datarails integrates with your accounting software, ERP, CRM, HRIS, payment system, etc. Even if we haven't integrated with your software before, our integration team can establish connections with most systems. Additionally, you can submit data directly from your Excel spreadsheets. 

Lookups

Datarails makes your data more useful by adding additional information to your line items. It’s common that lookups reference Chart of Accounts to add account hierarchies and exchange rate tables to keep FX rates up-to-date.

Data Mapper

Think of the Data Mapper as the brain of Datarails. It's where we turn your unstructured data into structured databases. You can use the Data Mapper to:

• Access all your data in one place by consolidating from multiple sources
• Clean your data with advanced filtering
• Add tags, for example for scenarios, departments, or locations
• Automate exchange rate conversions
• Add calculated columns

Datarails Table

A Datarails Table is the database that results from consolidating all your inputs in one place. For example, you may receive financial data from multiple entities or from different systems. Your Datarails Table is your single source of truth where you can access everything in one place.  It lives in the cloud and is continually updated whenever you submit a new input file or according to a set schedule when you have an integration set-up.

Datarails creates a new version of your data whenever it changes. That means, you can always go back to previous iterations and don't have to worry about overwriting anything. Versions are automatically tagged with who made a change and the date and time, so you can quickly find the data you need.

Dashboards

Seeing the numbers in a visual way makes it simpler to spot trends, variances, and anomalies and inspires business decisions based on data from across the company. Datarails dashboards do just that. Your environment comes with a number of pre-installed dashboards that show various views of your P&L and Balance Sheet.

You can create your own visualizations simply via drag-and-drop. If you have used Pivot tables in Excel before, then you'll quickly feel comfortable creating dashboards.

What you can do with Datarails dashboards:

• Tell the story behind the data with 16 different chart types
• Answer business questions on-the-spot by instantly showing visuals at a lower level of detail. For example, you may be reporting results at the country level and can answer questions about regional performance instantly by clicking on the widget.
• Automatically email dashboards to your business partners at a set schedule

Excel Reports

Datarails comes with a variety of pre-built reports that work out-of-the-box. 

You have access to (among others):

• Period-over-period comparisons,
• Budget versus Actuals reports,
• Rolling 12-month forecasts,
• Multi-year views

These reports are connected to your inputs and ERP systems and can be updated simply by clicking the Refresh button.

You also have the option to automate your existing reports and create your own using the drag-and-drop Report Builder (covered in the Excel module of the course).

PowerPoint Decks

Datarails allows you to insert dashboard widgets and parts of your Excel reports into your PowerPoint presentations. As a result, you can:

• Update all your slides at the press of a button
• Drill-down to a more detailed view without leaving your presentation
• Access transactional data for ad-hoc analysis

Other things you should know

Fileboxes

Datarails saves your files in a special kind of folder we call a Filebox, so you can:

• Tag your data with a period, a scenario label, a status label, or a forecast version
• Store multiple iterations of the same file for version control and audit trails
• Connect with your ERP system through an integration

Permissions

As a Datarails administrator, you can decide who gets to see which reports, dashboards, and files. You can assign different permissions for each filebox or more broadly for groups of reports. 

We will cover different permission levels in the Admin section of the course.

Help Center

You can find the Help Center in the lower-left corner of your Datarails web environment. Access it for:

• In-depth how-to guides 
• The Datarails Certificate Course
• Release notes highlighting new features
• Contact details to get help from the Datarails support team

This concludes the Introduction module! Next up is how to use Flex, the Excel add-in, to update your reports and create new views.

Next: Excel Module

Previous: Course Overview

Updated September 19, 2023 13:22