Media & Publishing

UNIT4 CODA is a world-leading developer of web-enabled accounting and procurement software. Our award-winning CODA Financials solution provides over 100 organizations in media and publishing with unrivalled control over their finances.

Industry changes and your financial system
- The issues
- The UNIT4 CODA solution
Integration to best-of-class revenue and production systems
Managing costs with spend management
Real-time visibility
Media & publishing clients
Capabilities for the media & publishing sector

Industry changes and your financial system

CFOs in the Media & Publishing sector are enduring an unrelenting series of changes. Whether it is a new business model, demands for transparency from investors, M&A activity or new growth opportunities in emerging lines of business, CFOs are continually challenged to adjust to changes, while simultaneously being asked to do more, with fewer staff.

The issues

While change can be good, it can wreak havoc on a financial system and your accounting team’s lives. Change can directly affect reports, financial processes, controls and the integration touch points to operational systems. This keeps the financial staff under constant pressure to make sure financial integrity and compliance are continuously maintained. Change can be particularly stressful if your organization has manual processes, relies heavily on spreadsheets or is using an inflexible and unsophisticated accounting system.

The UNIT4 CODA solution

In the media and publishing sector, accounting systems must go far beyond the basics of book-keeping to keep pace. At UNIT4 CODA, we believe that a financial system must literally account for and expect change, whether it is caused by an acquisition, a new set of controls or closing down a line of business. We’ve made it our mission to set the global standard for financial software that helps dynamic organizations adapt to changes – simply, quickly and cost effectively.

Read more about how UNIT4 CODA accounts for change.

Integration to best-of-class revenue and production systems

Media and publishing companies can no longer compromise – you need great operational applications and great financial systems. This is particularly important in this competitive and dynamic industry, where specialized revenue and production systems are the lifeblood of the company. Therefore, it is essential that media and publishing organizations have the ability to connect together 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. 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 revenue and production 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. You can build your own specialized applications and use CODA Financials as an accounting component or as a financial hub. This allows media and publishing companies to concentrate on adding value to specialized systems, while simultaneously benefiting from a great financial software package.

Managing costs with spend management

One of the most under-automated and under-controlled functions in many media and publishing organizations today is the process for managing indirect expenditures. Indirect expenditures constitute items and services consumed in the normal course of operating a business, such as: office supplies, IT equipment, software, maintenance supplies, cleaning supplies, professional services, real-estate services and other outsourced services. Although indirect spend isn’t the largest expense category for media and publishing companies, it can be ripe for savings and process efficiencies. Hence, indirect spend automation represents a “low hanging fruit” opportunity for companies looking to increase earnings. The beauty of indirect spend savings is that savings fall directly to the bottom line, without closing operations or leaving you to agonize over layoffs. You can increase earnings per share – without increasing revenues or enduring painful cost reductions.

CODA Financials offers you a truly end-to-end spend management solution, covering the whole cycle from requisition through to payment. Our Spend Management module reduces costs by providing fast, controlled, online access to key procurement functions to all employees, and also delivers accurate budgetary control over expenditure. It helps you establish controls and consolidate purchasing activity across all locations, and positions you to leverage the full buying power of the organization.

Real-time visibility

Due to the innovative financial model provided by our Link™ architecture, CODA Financials delivers complete financial transparency – through real-time business analytics – to senior management and to all corners of the organization, where such information will add value and help you to drive your business forward. Transactions and activity from subsystems can be held in great detail, enabling an unbeatable level of analysis, even down to individual product lines – by period, by week, by day, by hour etc. The financial model is ideally suited for the information demands of the media and publishing sector, delivering an unprecedented level of real-time analysis and visibility.