Why SunSystems is Still Best in Class for Finance.

I’ve always said that Infor’s SunSystems is the Accountant’s Accounting package. And with good reason. When launched in the 90s, the integrated approach made life in finance much easier. In the intervening decades, the evolution and pace of alignment with needs has seen SunSystems remain one of the best choices on the market. After 15 years and countless SunSystems implementations, let me explain my rationale.”

Leon Bourke, Director AcQuum Consulting

SunSystems’ simplicity

For those of us in finance who learned our trade-in companies in the nineties and noughties, SunSystems was the system of choice. Its combined ledger concept lent itself well to our brains that were grappling with the concept of Debits, Credits, P&Ls, Balance Sheets and Cashflows … SunSystems made sense and it made accounting make sense too.

Empowering Finance and breaking the IT gridlock

You could store statistical data in system alongside all your financial information – booking numbers, reservations, headcount, square metres. Having this data at your fingertips made trend analysis and KPI presentation so easy. It was a system that Finance could own due to its brilliant Excel add-in Vision. Finance could write their own reports without leaning on IT and they could utilise Vision’s user-friendly data send functionality to bring in data from other systems, again without a reliance on IT.

Constant evolution

Now fast forward to 2024, and SunSystems still makes sense, and many of those people who learnt their craft with SunSystems are now CFOs. They are the key decision-makers for technology in the Finance department.  

So why does SunSystems still make sense for them and the staff:

1.      SunSystems Has Retained Its Structural Capabilities And It’s Been Extended.

SunSystems allows organisations to slice and dice their organisation using Analysis Dimensions that can be tagged onto transactions and master data. This capability has always been there and it always will be. Now, though, we can add multiple levels of parallel hierarchies over those dimensions. It’s the type of capability usually provided for in Corporate Performance Management solutions, but it comes out of the box with the SunSystems finance system.

2. Excel Is Not Going Anywhere, And Having A Direct Connection To It Is Still Powerful.

The Excel reporting and integration tool Vision has evolved significantly and will continue to do so. It’s been renamed to Q&A, and query and analysis it does brilliantly.

Analysis is a breeze with data exploration capabilities that allow you to drill, break down, and expand from high-level reports right down the transaction and the person who entered/posted the transaction.

It is more user-friendly than ever, and the Finance team still owns it. With Q&A you will never need to ask IT to write another report.

3. True International Capability, Scalability, Deployed as true SaaS.

Multi-national organisations can spin up new countries in a matter of minutes when they deploy Infor SunSystems Cloud. NGOs can and do bring on new projects in countries they need, with all the required transactional, base, reporting and industry currencies. Hotel owners bring on new acquisitions quickly and efficiently as their portfolios grow, and importantly, they report from a consolidated standpoint with those hotels included as soon as the property opens its doors.

4. Effortless Ability to Connect With Other Systems

For many organisations, assembling a best-in-class business technology stack is the best option. It provides the freedom to deploy the best functionality for each organisation area. It allows them to decouple and replace technologies without replacing the whole-of-business system. Certain industries tend to gravitate to this line of thinking.

Three industries that embrace this ease of connectivity are Hospitality, Financial Services and Transport /Logistics. We have example after example of these sectors connecting with the upstream systems synonymous with those industries.

Property Management Systems, Specialist Purchasing software, Member Administration Platforms, Transport Management Systems … these are all best-of-breed systems that make their respective industries tick, and they all need to feed the Finance system.

SunSystems has always connected effortlessly with these systems with its inbuilt Transfer Desk functionality and powerful mapping capability.

Now, in 2024, the SunSystems Cloud solution, more than ever, provides a true interconnectedness with upstream and downstream technologies. For example, Open Banking is now available to us, and SunSystems API capabilities mean that immediate payments to suppliers and bank transaction ingestion into the Bank Rec are all achievable and achievable in multiple ways across multiple platforms. Another example is grabbing the daily currency rates straight from your FX provider. Supplier catalogues are now kept up to date in SunSystems. All these examples are now possible with SunSystems API capabilities.

5. De-Risking Your Organisation

Unfortunately, cyber events are now common practice, and prevention planning and response planning are part of our day-to-day. We see this in our customers’ requests on these matters, we see it with the increase in related information requests from our insurers, and we see it played out in the media daily.

From an infrastructure perspective, moving your system to a SaaS cloud solution takes the risk away from your organisation and places it in the hands of the software vendor. Infor’s cloud environment has ISO 27001 certification and others. So moving your SunSystems across into that Infor cloud environment makes a great deal of sense.

Let’s now talk about the risk within an organisation, and how SunSystems ensures your finance department is de-risked. SunSystems has a comprehensive separation of duty capability, with role-based security that can be set down at the individual level if necessary.

Additionally it provides Data Auditing functionality over more than 570 data types. It offers transparent multi-level system approvals. This means that you will never have a situation where a single person can create supplier bank details without approval, a bank detail change cannot go unreported, and the CFO can sleep at night knowing that off-system dubious approvals by individuals don’t happen.

6. A Strong Global Ecosystem, Continuous Improvement And Investment In Product.

Infor has invested significantly in SunSystems, and in 2021 it reformed the SunSystems Independent Business Unit. This is remarkable because it shows the importance of the SunSystems brand to Infor.

Leaders of the SunSystems BU were handed the express mandate of bringing to market the next generation of SunSystems in the Cloud, and now, having delivered on that, momentum is gaining.

Just before Xmas 2023 the 100th customer joined the SunSystems Cloud. 100 in just 12 months. 2024 is set to see this grow exponentially as Infor expands its data centre coverage to include Sydney, Australia, and is looking to a third location.

The SunSystems ecosystem is truly global, its partner network has been in place for well over 30 years, and it continues to grow. This longevity provides a deep-rooted stability.

7. Strong Voice of the Customer Embedded in the Operations

The partner network brings with it localisation skillsets that convert the global SunSystems application into a local solution. The partners work hand-in-glove with Infor in developing the product roadmap for SunSystems. Partners form part of the SunSystems Product Advisory Board, which advises Infor SunSystems Product Management on the direction of functionality within the product. AcQuum Consulting sits on this Board, with me as co-chair. It provides a true Voice of the Customer within SunSystems, which I feel translates into another benefit to the CFO and their team. They can be confident that trends and changes within finance are part of the development roadmap within the SunSystem BU.

So in closing, I would say, to those people looking for a new finance system – if you are looking for a Finance System that Finance can own, that has all the advantages and security of cloud computing, that will grow with your organisation whether it be locally or across geographic location, have another look at the next generation SunSystems Cloud solution from Infor.

Author: Leon Bourke, Director AcQuum Consulting