Cartesis Launches Cartesis Intercompany Server, The First Solution for Peer-to-Peer Reconciliation on the Web.

Business/High Tech Editors

STAMFORD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 30, 2002

Cartesis, a leading software vendor of financial analytic applications, announces today the release of Cartesis ICS (Cartesis Intercompany Server), the first solution to enable reporting units to reconcile intercompany balances directly with one another on the web.

Cartesis ICS shortens the reporting cycle for large corporations, making faster and more frequent disclosures possible. It further increases the gains attainable with Cartesis' web-based financial analytic platform, Cartesis Magnitude.

With Cartesis ICS, companies save a considerable amount of time in the reporting process by delegating the reconciliation process to the business units. According to a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers of US multinationals, the time spent in the intercompany reconciliation process is the second highest cause for delays in the reporting timetable, representing 44% of those companies surveyed. (Consolidation and the Reporting Function in U.S. Multinational Enterprises).

Cartesis ICS offers a new and innovative way of collaborating in the finance function of major corporations. The flow of often contradictory information about intercompany transactions is managed in real-time over the web between all internal entities doing business with each other. Cartesis ICS provides the means to the people who have the information to directly agree among themselves. This eliminates extra work at the corporate or divisional level, which up until now have been required to act as intermediaries in resolving these issues between the different subsidiaries or business units. Cartesis ICS removes intercompany reconciliation from the critical path because this can now be done before the closing process starts.

Cartesis ICS can be quickly installed and configured. It interoperates with the existing systems that manage financials. Users become quickly operational due to its intuitive design. In summary, companies implementing Cartesis ICS will obtain a very quick return on their investment.

According to Bob Fitzgerald, President of Cartesis, Inc., "With the addition of Cartesis ICS to our product line, we offer yet another solution to help organizations close their books faster. Cartesis has always provided solutions to support and streamline key processes in the finance function through automation and tools specifically designed to manage those processes. Cartesis ICS goes further than just supporting the process. It truly revolutionizes the traditional approach to intercompany reconciliation."

John Van Decker, Senior Program Director with the META Group stated, "Intercompany reconciliations have and continue to be a problem plaguing most large global organizations today. Although most of the barriers to a faster close are of an organizational nature, technology can be leveraged to support change. A peer-to-peer reconciliation process can address the problem at the source by enabling a radical change in the process itself -- individual business units are enlisted in the reconciliation process and are no longer reliant upon an overstressed corporate finance organization to handle the reconciliation alone."

About Cartesis

Cartesis is the leading worldwide supplier of financial analytic applications for Strategic Financial Management. Cartesis offers truly integrated applications on a powerful analytic platform. With its world headquarters located in Paris, France, the company maintains subsidiaries in Brussels, Frankfurt, London, Madrid, Paris, Stamford, CT, Tokyo and Utrecht. Cartesis products give Global 2000 companies the analytic capacity and the flexibility they need to assess the rapid changes in their market places. One in five of the Fortune Global 100 and more than 30% of the Financial Times European 100 use Cartesis solutions to obtain unprecedented command over their financial information and processes.