Budgeting and reporting software solution idu-Concept is now available in the cloud, making its benefits available to medium-sized businesses without the expense and hassle of a major implementation project, the company has announced.

“idu-Concept is an easy-to-use alternative to Excel budgeting that gives companies better control over their budget process, with greater accountability and transparency,” says idu MD Kevin Phillips.

“Over the past couple of years we’ve had a lot of queries from potential customers who wanted the software, but found the cost of outright purchase and implementation prohibitive. A cloud-based version of the software makes it accessible to many more businesses.”

“Any company that’s already running an ERP system like Pastel, Accpac or Syspro can now be up and running with idu-Concept within days,” says Phillips.

“Using the cloud-based version of the software makes it a viable opex expense with a fixed monthly cost per user, rather than a major capital project.”

The cloud version is available for standard financial budgeting and reporting as well as for revenue sales budgeting and reporting.

Phillips says organisations using idu-Concept have shorter budget cycles and get more timely reports than those using Excel.

“They also get better management buy-in to the budget process and the ability for line managers, even those who aren’t financially trained, to use budgets as a day-to-day expense management tool. The organisation ends up with many more people who are truly accountable for their budgets at cost centre level.”

idu-Concept in the cloud is hosted at the new Dube Tradeport data centre in Durban, says Phillips, ensuring excellent performance and reliability.

“There is full off-site replication to ensure no service interruptions, and thanks to the international bandwidth landing in Durban it’s fast. We’re getting better performance from the data centre servers than from some local machines” says Phillips.