Key to Resell UNIT4 CODA Financials

March 1, 2011 Alex Woodie

IBM i server reseller Key Information Systems will distribute the CODA Financials software package from UNIT4 CODA, the companies announced last week.

CODA Financials is an integrated collection of Java-based software that supports a range of business requirements, including core accounting (GL, AP, and AR); planning, budgeting, and forecasting; cash management; purchasing and invoice matching; and reporting and business intelligence. The product, which starts at about $50,000, also includes integrated document management and imaging; features a control framework for automating compliance and audit activities; and employs modern XML-based Web services for integration.

The UNIT4 CODA group markets its software as a “best of breed” financial package that excels as replacement for the poorly integrated financial components of ERP systems. A single integrated database, the vendor says, makes for smoother implementations, and reduces the need for costly re-development during upgrades and expansions. This approach also enables CODA Financials to more easily adapt to complicated business structures, such as large corporations that want to run multiple subsidiary companies off a single financial system, or companies with the need to support multiple languages and currencies.

Pete Elliot, director of marketing at Key Info, expects CODA Financials to fit into his company’s focus on delivering “only the very best solutions” to its clients. “CODA Financials is a highly integrated family of financial management solutions that can be easily integrated in a variety of environments quickly, avoiding the rip and replace approach of large ERP financial applications and delivering a wide variety of financial applications and tools,” he states in a press release.

While it’s written in Java, CODA Financials is actively developed for IBM i (which is a focus of Key Info), and utilizes unique aspects of that platform for integration purposes. About 10 percent of the 3,500 or so companies that have adopted CODA Financial run the software on the IBM i server, company officials have told IT Jungle. However, the implementations on the IBM i platform tend to be larger, and account for about 30 percent of the revenue.

The UNIT4 CODA group was acquired about three years ago by the $576-million Dutch firm UNIT, and is operated as a separate entity out of Manchester, New Hampshire. UNIT4, which reported its financial results last week, recorded total 2010 revenues of $576.4 million, an increase of 11 percent, and “net profit” of $59 million, an increase of 23.5 percent.

Key and UNIT4 CODA plan to demonstrate the CODA Financials package at the upcoming COMMON conference being held May 1 to 4 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.