From Disconnected to Connected – Part I
Velixo, our Excel add-in, transforms your Excel files by establishing a bidirectional connection between your worksheets and ERP system. With Velixo, you can say goodbye to manual effort and outdated worksheets. Live data in your preferred format (let’s be honest, Excel is just better than native ERP reporting) is a game-changer when it comes to efficiency and accuracy.
We are proud of our high ratings from real users, which attest to Velixo’s ease of use, flexibility, and small learning curve. This is why most users are up and running in a matter of days! In this blog, we provide three options for how you can get started with Velixo. If you are already a seasoned user, please keep reading because you might find some helpful tips!
Option 1: Start from Scratch
ERP implementations are a lot of work, but they do provide a great opportunity to improve and standardize processes. If your company recently purchased Velixo alongside your new ERP, you might want to leave those old spreadsheets behind and start fresh.
We have a great Getting Started video series that walks you through connecting your workbook to your ERP and how to use some of the basic Velixo functionality our users know and love. But let’s be clear: You are still just in Excel! Velixo works seamlessly inside Excel, adding functionality on top of the flexible tool set you’ve been using since grade school.
Option 2: Modify a Template
At the risk of sounding repetitive, we’ll say it again. If you know Excel, you pretty much already know how to use Velixo. However, there might be situations when it is best to start with a template file that is already built out. Sometimes, modifying a file is better than starting from scratch. This is especially true if the functionality Velixo provides allows you to perform reporting and processing inside Excel that was previously unachievable.
Our team has built out a variety of templates for Acumatica-based ERPs and also for Sage Intacct for several different use cases: financials, quoting, construction, AR & AP, and purchasing among others. If you are just getting started, we recommend beginning with our financial reporting pack which includes a P&L, cash flow statement, trial balance, budget writeback sheet, and even a great allocation scenario.
Once you download the Excel file, you can easily make the adjustments necessary to pull in your data. All you need to do is:
- Edit the Connection in the Connection Manager to link to your ERP data.
- Update the sample report references. As an example, you might need to update account code references.
- Have a blast in Excel! The sky is the limit when you have live ERP data right in your worksheets.
Would you like to learn more about how to modify sample Velixo reports? Click here to read our help article.
Option 3: Update your Existing Workbooks
If you are an Excel power user, chances are you already have some fantastic workbooks that may be the product of years of fine-tuning and adjusting. With the folks we work with, we see some incredible worksheets that our customers were previously using for financial reporting, quoting, reconciliations, etc.
If this is the case, it might make sense to “Velixoize” your current workbooks. It’s the best of both worlds: Worksheets with the formatting you know and love, enhanced with live data and writeback capabilities.
Here’s a few helpful hints for enhancing your current Excel files with Velixo:
- Use Velixo’s list functions (See an example here) or GI/Query functions with a data validation dropdown to provide live selection boxes for accounts, subaccounts, customers, vendors, etc.
- Replace static data cells from your last export or copy-and-paste with Velixo functions and leverage references to filters such as financial period or subaccount
- Hide and/or protect cells, columns, full worksheets, and even the workbook structure with native Excel functionality, ensuring your Velixo formulas aren’t unintentionally modified.
- Every cell of your workbook can include a Velixo function, this ensures that your formatting and custom layout is well preserved
This is exactly what customer Yardnique achieved in less than 2 weeks! They were able to insert Velixo functions and upgrade the financial reports their business had used for over 20 years as live reports, while retaining the exact same look and feel of their original reports.
Tom Flanagan, Controller at Yardnique says: “With Velixo, it was a plug-and-play experience for our existing reports and it’s instant. It saves 2-3 hours every time I hit the refresh button.”
Read more about our Yardnique Customer Case Study.
Want to Learn More?
We are blessed to be a part of a community of innovative Excel users achieving great feats in their worksheets! With Excel and Velixo, it is easier than ever to report, plan, and automate your workflows. If you are ready to join our customers who are using Velixo to bring their ERP data to life in Excel, click here to schedule a demo.