Over-reliance on spreadsheets may lead to data integrity concerns, reporting inaccuracies and compliance issues.

Toronto, Canada – March 23, 2009 – Longview Solutions, a leading provider of corporate performance management (CPM) software, has kicked off a series of initiatives for customers and other companies impacted by International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption in North America.

The adoption of the IFRS is on track for 2011 in Canada, with dates still being set in the U.S. IFRS will replace the local GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) in both countries as the standard of financial reporting for all publicly accountable firms. The transition to IFRS can be quite challenging, and companies need to better understand what the standards are, how the change will impact the organization as a whole and more importantly, how to properly prepare for the transition.

“The change to IFRS-compliant reporting is much more than just a change to some technical accounting rules and practices,” says John Power, President of Longview Solutions. “IFRS will impact people, processes and technology; and will require and/or cause substantive transformational changes within Finance and Accounting areas, and across all parts of an organization.”

“Initiating and planning your IFRS project is a critical first step in achieving a successful IFRS transition,” says Virgil Colby, Program Manager for the Celestica IFRS Transition project.  “There is a lot of analysis, decision making, modeling and communicating to be done before you get close to disclosing preliminary impacts of IFRS on your financials.  One of the greatest challenges will be the collection, consolidation and reporting of IFRS comparable data.  Utilizing the capabilities of technology such as CPM software enables a smooth IFRS transition by providing accurate, consistent, auditable and timely financial results,” Colby goes on to say that “CPM applications, such as the Longview Performance Management Platform, provide a strong complement to enhance General Ledger (GL) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in providing an effective way to handle the far-reaching effects that IFRS has on financial reporting. For us, the Longview Performance Management Platform was the obvious solution, as it is already in place and standard functionality supports the IFRS transition project requirements.”

To help companies grapple with the changes involved in transitioning to IFRS, Longview has launched a series of initiatives, including:

Whitepapers
Throughout 2009, Longview will be posting a series of papers on topics related to IFRS, including: adoption status in North America; transitioning to IFRS; IFRS and CPM; and IFRS, Tax Reporting and IAS 12. The first in this series, titled In North America, the IFRS Train has Left the Station: Is your company going to be on it … or running to catch up?, is now available. Please visit www.longview.com/ifrswhitepaper to download your free copy.

Webcasts
Longview will produce a series of webcasts on IFRS-related topics. The first, titled “IFRS – How to Assess Your Financial Readiness”, features Don Newell, Deloitte Partner and National IFRS Leader, and Tony Wright, Longview’s Vice President of Product Management, discussing the impact of IFRS and where CPM can help.

Coffee Talks
In an ongoing series of webcasts available only to its customers, Longview Solutions provides periodic updates on IFRS to help customers learn how to build and implement an effective IFRS adoption plan, and emphasize how Longview Consolidation can help facilitate the IFRS transition. Customers wishing to participate need only send an e-mail request to Longview at info@longview.com.

Breakfast Seminar
Together with PricewaterhouseCoopers and MicroStrategy, Longview is hosting a breakfast seminar titled “IFRS: Lessons Learned from 100 Countries--Top 10 Things You Need To Know” on March 25th in Toronto at the MaRs Discovery District.  To register please click here.

Customer Conference
With the theme of “Converge, Connect, Collaborate”, Longview’s customer conference, Dialog 2009, scheduled for May 11-14 in Dallas, will feature IFRS-related sessions led by subject matter experts and customers who have completed or are currently involved in an IFRS transition project. To view the complete Dialog 2009 agenda, please visit http://dialog.longview.com/agenda/.

About Longview Solutions
Longview Solutions helps companies manage the business of finance with a unified, scalable application that can automate any one, or combination of, the following financial processes: Planning, Budgeting, Forecasting, Consolidation, Tax Provisioning, Management Reporting and Profitability Analytics. Since 1994, hundreds of Fortune 1000 enterprises have standardized on Longview’s Corporate Performance Management (CPM) software to create a single source of financial truth, realizing significant improvements in data integrity, decision support, visibility and financial transparency.  Longview is a division of Exact based in Toronto, Canada, with additional offices in Philadelphia, Chicago (USA) and London (UK).  For more information please visit www.longview.com.