What Microsoft FRx Can & Cannot Do For Your Business

Growing a successful business requires more than the standard matrix of People, Product and Process. A clean understanding of the business financials, and their implications on operations is key to achieving growth and prosperity. You need the right financial reporting system to help your accountants, controllers and executive decision-makers more effectively and efficiently manage the business.

Microsoft® FRx®, (bundled at no cost with Microsoft Dynamics enterprise resource planning solutions), is a popular option for financial reporting. FRx includes built-in accounting intelligence and links to an organization’s existing financial records and General Ledger. This makes it easy to manage financial reporting and analysis — and improve decision-making and productivity. But there are limitations to FRx, and these issues may outweigh the utility of this common financial reporting tool.

The Pluses of Using FRx:

• It requires little assistance from IT specialists
• It helps users with varying levels of financial knowledge and skill quickly create accurate and useful financial reports using design wizards and customizable report templates
• Since financial information is pulled directly out of the General Ledger, the most current financial data is reflected in reports.
• It features interfaces to more than 50 industry-leading financial accounting systems
• Built-in accounting intelligence automatically recognizes accounting. This ensures every report is complete and accurate by providing an audit trail.
• It streamlines the financial close process
• Users can export FRx reports to Excel for extended analysis

The Minuses of Using FRx:

• There’s no option to report beyond the General Ledger

• It’s not designed to meet the needs of today’s users by supporting collaboration and mobility
• There’s no flexible accessibility to live web reporting
• It’s a proprietary platform, closed to development.
• Users can export to Excel, but formatting and data clarity is often sacrificed.
• FRx does not support the 64-bit operating system environment

The biggest limitation of all?
FRx is no longer supported by Microsoft
Regular support for FRx ended in 2012 and extended support is ending in October 2017.

So What Should Users of FRx and Management Reporter Do Now?

Some FRx users have transitioned to it’s replacement - Microsoft Management Reporter (MR) - the financial reporting solution currently bundled with Microsoft Dynamics. Supporters say it is a true 64-bit solution, improves performance and is easy to use.

But critics charge MR does not deliver on all the standard features of FRx (no ability to export to or import from cubes, data warehouses, or Excel pivot tables). Additionally, the fact that there is no plan to migrate MR to the cloud, or make future enhancements to the software, puts a deathclock on MR as we await Microsoft’s next move.

Fortunately, there are many superior options that can be used in place of FRx and Management Reporter. Each product is unique. Matching your organization to the right FRx/MR replacement is our specialty. If you would like additional information on how Business Solution Partners can help your company migrate away from FRx/MR, and into the future, click the link below: