ART Reviews

"Reconciliation made easy"

Pros: I use this application to reconcile my accounts during month close. It is extremely easy to use and has amazing interface.

"Needs some more automation for Notes and Approvals"

Pros: Simplicity and simple summary of balances for viewing

Cons: The speed of the approval process. Both adding notes and waiting on the approval after you have clicked to process.

"Great Reconciliation Management Solution"

Comments: ART resulted in immediate efficiencies to the reconciliation management process. The product support team is exceptionally knowledgeable and responsive.

"Solid, simple, but room for improvement"

Comments: Make recon easy to track once you start owning certain number of GL. Easy to look back at the status of previous months.

Pros: Very simple system. Great landing dashboard. Get the job done. Does not have 5000 features embedded where 4999 of them either no one knows or no one uses.

Cons: UI need an upgrade. Too colorful (in term of brightness). Not sure what's the legend for at the bottom w/ all the tooltip. Not extremely friendly for new users given that every page seems to have similar layout. Need a drop down to select account up the top w/ the top part always freeze pane.

"Struggle to learn and to access correct boxes, but once understood, has been OK to use."

Comments: Still determining this.

Pros: Not one item rises to the surface. Some functions are expected, so nothing rates a "favorite" category.

Cons: Updated balances need to be manually performed by Corporate Offices, often we are trying to balance to an old figure and have to manually determine what is the correct balance.

"Makes it simple to keep track of your balance sheet and all of the separate accounts included."

Pros: I think the software is easy to learn and doesn't over complicate things. For example, when you set up prepaids it walks you through the amortization schedule and calculates it out for you.

Cons: Sometimes the pie chart can be hard to read and select from. Especially as the amount of accounts you have increases.

"easy to use"

Comments: It makes my job easier

Pros: Great software to keep all GL together Timesaving less paperwork.

Cons: Too many screens to go back and forth but in general good software

"Difficult to learn and use"

Pros: Better than nothing - what we had before. Prior to this everyone did their own form of reconciliations and this forced us into uniformity.

Cons: Submitting journal entries. Difficult to navigate and figure out what hasn't been submitted for review. Reconciliation forms leave a lot to be desired as well.

"Skystem has been easy to use and navigate. At times I do see that it doesn't refresh account stat."

Comments: This helps us track and be able to review our balance sheet recs. more accurately. This definantly beats doing manual balance sheet recs every month.

Pros: I like that this avoids any manual reconciliation. It allows us to also go back and review period months and reporting periods.

Cons: It doesn't always update when we approve certain balance sheet accounts. The approval process seems to duplicate from approver to submitter. At times, this causes us to think the recs. and signed off, when in reality we have to go back in and approve.

"USEFUL SOFTWARE"

Pros: I liked the capability to attach documents to the recon.
It serves as an efficient depository.

Cons: The most annoying thing about the software is the speed. Updating is very slow.

"ART"

Pros: ART does a good job allowing support to the gl balances, and retrieving previous support.

Cons: There is to much information on the input pages, this needs to be simplified or reduced to make it easier to use.

"Sksytem is a nice took to keep all the reconciliations"

Comments: Good control over monthly reconciliations

Pros: The skystem took is easy to navigate and user friendly. The reporting structure also looks good. The availability of back up reviewer and preparer function is also helpful.

Cons: The skystem tool doesnot provide the functionality to upload a file greater than 15MB. We have few reconciliations wherein we need to make adjustmments to make a file smaller.

"easy to use"

Comments: access for auditors

Pros: the set up of the screens and the use of which they are to navigate. the layout and the common sense approach.

Cons: the need for a full email address as the login and also the constant email notifications on accounts updated or changed

"logical setup"

Comments: auditors have access

Pros: the screens are logically set up out and easy to navigate. The ability to use different ways to navigate.

Cons: multiple layers on some menus. these can get confusing to remember where you are at in a menu and where you would need to got next.

"I use this system once a month for my reconciliations. Never had any problems with this"

Comments: I do not really get the benefits as an individual but I think my company sees the benefits of this as they can link in with all the various offices.

Pros: I find the system straight forward and very self explanatory. I have never had any major issues using this.

Cons: Sometimes you get logged out of the system and have to log back in. Not a major problem but can be inconvenient

"An Easy and Intuitive Time-Saver"

Comments: I wish we had partnered with SkyStem much earlier! SkyStem ART has been both a valued time-saver and much-appreciated simplifier for our Accounting team. SkyStems's ART system was easy to learn, significantly reduced our team's reconciliation prep time, and has done so at great value. The implementation process and learning curve was straightforward, and their customer service has been outstanding - throughout implementation and ever since. Thank you!

"Our experience with Skystem's ART software has been overwhelmingly positive."

Pros: (1) Ease of use, (2) workflow-based application, (3) increased visibility and transparency into the general ledger reconciliation and certification process, (4) provides a great audit trail that supports our Sarbanes-Oxley assertions, (5) wonderful and timely customer service support, and (6) it is cloud-based so zero to minimal IT Department involvement

Cons: Additional costs can creep up on you when adding additional users outside of the original contract.

"The program was tricky to use at first, but overall I like the program"

Pros: Keeps track of all reconciliations. I like the reminders. I like that you can bundle r econciliation

Cons: The required check lists could be more user friendly. There is often a system pause. The screen is a little hard to read and I often select the wrong drop down menu.

"Great rec system overall"

Comments: Allows easier reconciliation than past systems I have used.

Pros: Easy to show reconciliation, easy to attach docs and comments. Overall great tool and gets us away from using Excel as we always have in the past. Also quick to be able to go back to prior periods and review outstanding issues.

Cons: Least is that the upgrades are done in the middle of the day when we are trying to use the system. Upgrades should always be done overnight when fewest users would be on. This could be my company's issue rather than the system, if it is then please disregard and everything is great.

"SkyStem has certainly saved us time and paper costs in preparing and reviewing our reconciliations."

Comments: Time saver

Pros: It cuts my time in half to review reconciliations vs when I manually reviewed. I like the fact that documents can be carried forward from month to month.

Cons: It is not set up to handle daily reconciliations. If the system is upgraded for daily events it will make our banking lives much easier.

"Freat product for mid sized organisations"

Pros: It gibes a clear view on the accounts and changing details is easy. It gives a central storage location for easy access for the accounts

Cons: The software slows down drastically at the end of the month when the accounts are to be tallied and stuff and uploading important data will have to hold for a while too.

"Overall I have enjoyed working with it, but there is a learning curve to understanding how it works"

Comments: ART is a great way to have a controlled system for subsidiary reconciliation.

Pros: ART requires individuals to be assigned accounts and then reminds them automatically of what needs to be done and when they are/were due. The system keeps clear delineation between periods so as not to confuse the situation.

Cons: ART has a number of what I would call "quirks". Some examples: 1.) On some screens, you can only look at one page (10 accounts) at a time, while others allow you to view up to 500 at a time. 2.) There are screens that list the accounts in numerically low to high, while others are in the order in which they were added or assigned . 3.) User Manuals do not cover everything. There needs to be a FAQ sheet for the odd situations.

"ART review"

Comments: ART is a great tool for accounts reconciliation. It really forces you to really look into the account to know what makes up the balance. It is easy to set up users in ART. Users have access right away after they have been set up.
It is easy to assign or reassign accounts to users and the changes take effect right away. No waiting period. Customer support is great. Staff are very accessible and quick in responding to whatever questions we have. It's a great tool for auditing purpose. Audit trail shows the work flow, who, when submits the recon and who when approves the recon so there's accountability. It's great that we can download the reports in excel so can sort or do pivot table or to see what have been done or have not been done.

"SkyStem is a great product and extremely user friendly"

Comments: The ability to use the software at home and at work

Pros: The ability of this web based software that will allow you to access your balance sheet reconciliations at work and at home at any time of the day. You also have the ability to store via pdf scans, all of your supporting documents

Cons: Sometimes the server slows down during certain periods of the month especially when everyone is trying to get the balance sheet reconciliations completed.

"Love SkyStem!"

Comments: No problems at all! Happy user

Pros: I really love the reconciliation software. It is intuitive and easy to reference past data.

Cons: None! I am really happy overall. The only issues I've found is sometimes the currency rates do not match what is in our system which can cause some reconciliation differences. I would also be helpful if we could use other currencies such as EUR, CNY, CHF, and JPY.