ADERANT Enhances Budgeting Solution for Professional Services Firms; Improved Executive Office Application Delivers New People Budgeting and Variance Reporting Functionality, Increases Customization and Ease-of-Use.

ATLANTA -- ADERANT, a global provider of business and financial management software for professional services organizations, today announced the availability of an enhanced version of its business planning application, ADERANT Budgeting Release 7.0. The improved solution delivers enhanced functionality for people budgeting and variance reporting as well as increased customization and ease-of-use.

Used by more than 50 leading professional service firms around the world, ADERANT Budgeting is a comprehensive business planning tool that automates budgeting and forecasting processes. The application helps firms rapidly develop business plans that accurately account for people, expenses, capital, and revenue. Budgeting supports both top-down and bottom-up planning in a distributed and collaborative environment. The application's powerful forecasting and budget variance functionality enables firms to accurately track and continually update their business plans.

"We had very specific functional requirements we wanted from a budgeting solution and ADERANT satisfied most of these needs," said Paul Vogelzang, Director of Practice Management at Clayton Utz, a leading Australian law firm that recently implemented ADERANT Budgeting. "It was always a challenge for us to coordinate our budget development efforts, especially with six offices and up to 60 people involved in the process. ADERANT Budgeting's ability to develop budgets in a collaborative environment, instantly consolidate revisions, and easily compare different versions helped us reduce our budget cycle from more than eight weeks to just five weeks."

"Faced with growing pressure on their bottom lines, professional services firms need a fast, easy, and accurate way to develop their business plans," said Michael J. Simmons, Chief Executive Officer for ADERANT. "Our latest version of Budgeting not only helps firms reduce the time, cost and hassle typically associated with budget development, but it also helps them stay on track throughout the year to meet their strategic business goals."

Enhanced People Budgeting and Variance Reporting Functionality

The latest version of ADERANT Budgeting includes enhanced people budgeting and variance reporting functionality. The application's people budgeting functionality has been improved to support multiple bonus types, provide greater flexibility in setting target and non-billable hours, and deliver tighter control and accuracy over new hire and staff data. Additionally, the application includes various user interface and data entry improvements.

The variance reporting functionality of Budgeting has also been enhanced to support extended comments viewing at all levels as well as optional account/sub-account relationships for easy budgeting roll-ups. The new functionality helps firms transform their budgeting process from an annual, static event into a dynamic, year-round process.

Improved Customization and Ease-of-Use

Additional enhancements have been made to ADERANT Budgeting to improve the solution's customization and overall ease-of-use. The application's customization model has been significantly improved to better allow firms to tailor the solution to meet their unique business requirements. Firms can now "soft label" commonly used fields to match firm- or industry-specific terminology. To ensure sensitive information is protected, administrators can easily hide columns or fields from specified groups of users.

Budgeting also includes a new "custom grid" capability that enables firms to access and display additional information within each of the application's existing summary grids. This new functionality allows firms to extend Budgeting's available data set without the need for core product changes. The additional data can include existing information sourced from within Budgeting or non-budgeting data, such as employee qualification, performance, and salary information, held in custom tables.

Other improvements have been made to improve Budgeting's overall ease-of-use. The application includes new functionality that streamlines the budgeting process by allowing users to view and compare data from previous budgets versions. Budgeting also includes new freeze pane and show/hide columns functionality that helps users find the information they need with less scrolling. Additionally, users can edit fields in summary screens to streamline data entry.

Comprehensive Business Performance Tools for Executives

Budgeting is part of a suite of integrated business intelligence and planning applications offered by ADERANT that also includes Analytics (OLAP/Cubes), Opportunity Calculator, and Profitability. Together, these applications help firms manage their operations more effectively by transforming business data into actionable information that can be used to make faster, more informed decisions.

With the introduction of the enhanced version of Budgeting, ADERANT has renamed this business performance solution set to ADERANT Executive Office. This name change reflects ADERANT's continuing strategy to provide professional service firms with comprehensive solutions that integrate with--and extends--the value of their existing back-office practice management systems.

"By combining powerful solutions for business planning, analytics, and profitability, ADERANT Executive Office provides professional service firms with the tools they need to monitor and improve their performance," continued Simmons. "ADERANT Executive Office helps executives and decision-makers better understand the key metrics behind their operations and use that information to keep their businesses on track."

About Clayton Utz

Founded in 1833, Clayton Utz is one of Australia's largest and most successful law firms. The firm employs more than 1,700 people, including 207 partners, in its six offices throughout Australia, including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Canberra, and Darwin. Clayton Utz's client base includes more than half of Australia's top 100 companies, as well as over 250 federal and state government departments and agencies.

About ADERANT

ADERANT, headquartered in Atlanta, GA, is a leading provider of software for services organizations. The global software company offers a comprehensive suite of solutions, consisting of financial, resource and practice management software that enables services organizations of all sizes to maximize operational efficiencies. ADERANT provides solutions to the world's largest and most prominent service organizations - including HP, Computer Sciences Corporation, KPMG LLP, Manugistics, American Express, Deloitte Consulting, Macleod Dixon LLP, Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw LLP, Skadden Arps and Winston & Strawn. ADERANT also has offices in Asia Pacific and Europe. More information about ADERANT is available at www.aderant.com.

Editors Note: The correct usage of the ADERANT name is all capitals.

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