BOSTON, MA, July 28, 2008 - eThority, a company delivering a powerful business intelligence platform with a user-obvious interface, announced today the availability of the eThority Commitment Management eXtension™. The eXtension is an addition to eThority Enterprise Edition™, the company’s flagship business intelligence (BI) software product. With this new tool, users can better manage current and future financial transactions for enterprise projects or initiatives that affect overall financial performance and management, but are typically not tracked in the ERP or general ledger accounting systems. eThority is showcasing its entire product suite in Booth #221 at Campus Technology 2008 today through Thursday in Boston, MA.

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) will use the Commitment Management eXtension and integrated transaction tagging functionalities to monitor and report on funds allocated to and used by more than 280 student-run organizations. In addition, the university will use the eThority solution to comply and report to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) on funds spent and revenue earned by the University’s Division I sports teams. All of this activity is facilitated by eThority’s user-obvious interface, which enables users with little or no training to produce powerful reports in minutes.

“A recent comprehensive audit showed us what we already knew; managing the finances of more than 280 student-led groups is a huge undertaking that often includes discrepancies between funds requested and those actually spent,” said Allen Lee, Unit Business Representative for the Division of Student Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “eThority will help us avoid potential problems by allowing us to manage these ledgers on an ongoing basis. Just as importantly, our student groups and system policies require more transparency in their accounts as part of the state’s shared governance mandate. The eThority solution will allow us to provide Web-based reporting for these groups with greater accuracy and timeliness.”

The eThority solution and its integrated transaction tagging functionality will dramatically cut reporting time while improving accuracy. The time savings will enable the university to make better use of a staff member whose prior role was dedicated entirely to reporting on the organization’s allocations and transactions.

Like all Division I institutions, UWM also faces a tough challenge managing the complex accounting required by NCAA regulations. Recently, the NCAA made a public commitment to accurate reporting on revenue and expenses as part of its Title IX requirements. Before eThority, UWM spent hundreds of hours annually in staffing costs to develop just two NCAA reports.

“Previously, we waited until the end of the year to apply one of 35 NCAA accounting codes to each of our athletic team expenses and their complex system of revenues. This was a huge and difficult task,” Lee remarked. “With eThority’s solution, these items will be coded automatically as transactions load into the system, minimizing year-end reporting. With 100 additional tags available per transaction and the flexibility of the transaction tag formats, the available reporting options have dramatically increased. Our coaches now have an intuitive tool that gives them complete visibility into their revenues and expenses throughout the year. With eThority, we will reduce effort spent producing the report, increase the level of detail and auditability, and spread the workload over twelve months instead of two.”

eThority’s Commitment Management eXtension is designed for any organization with large-scale initiatives related to infrastructure. It is also appropriate for tracking discretionary staff financial allowances (e.g. travel or education expenses) and for monitoring receivables if the system of record lacks this ability. Through its user-obvious interface, eThority Enterprise Edition allows users from across an organization to gain access to all data stored in both primary and secondary information sources, such as personal spreadsheets and departmental databases.

Additional Benefits of eThority Commitment Management eXtension

• Tracks off-ledger committed funds or encumbrances for a more accurate future financial picture than the system of record data
• Facilitates the ongoing management of commitments and enables communication to recipients of funds on outstanding balances due, applied amounts and details surrounding fulfillment
• Interfaces with the system of record and reconciles long-term commitments with actual expenditures or income as those transactions occur

eThority has a 16-year history in software development, support services and data reporting. The company developed its radically new Business Intelligence platform to allow customers to synergize their existing investments in information that remains idle in their legacy information systems. eThority’s solutions are in use around the globe at major research universities and leading corporations. For more information, please visit www.eThority.com.