"Monarch has been a tremendous benefit for me personally and is a great complement to FiServ/ITI. Thanks to Monarch, I have that data for reference anytime I meet with other officers of the bank. We found a winner in Monarch!"

One of the key challenges for Bill Demmin, Executive Vice President/Chief Financial Officer of fast-growing Mission Community Bank in San Luis Obispo, California, is to ensure timely and accurate financial information. The bank's operating data must be readily available for analysis to help effectively manage bank operations. In the past, getting this data was not always easy. Plus, the bank did not want to undertake expensive, custom IT projects to access needed data.

Mission Community Bank uses the Fiserv ITI financial management system, providing solid, reliable processing of all bank transactions. "Our Fiserv system does a great job at core bank processing," says Demmin, "but getting data out for financial analysis, operations management, and external reporting can be a challenge. Options exist to use a report writer or work with a data mart, but the cost is high, writing reports requires significant programming skills and training, and related costs increase even further over time. I felt there had to be a superior alternative to access needed bank data, quickly, inexpensively, and without extensive report writing training."

Indeed, Demmin hit on that superior alternative: Monarch, the report mining tool from Datawatch Corporation. Monarch transforms any report into live data on your PC. Monarch then lets users sort and filter report data, add new calculated fields of data, summarize data with graphs, export data to Excel, Access and much more – it's all easy with Monarch.

Even better, Monarch leverages one of Mission Community Bank's key existing information assets, already bought and paid for -- the reports produced by its existing Fiserv ITI system. By using Monarch, Mission Community Bank can now transform any existing current or historical Fiserv ITI report into live data with no new programming, at a cost that other databasefocused solutions simply can't touch.

MONARCH IS THE "PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE" TO GET DATA RIGHT AWAY

"We typically store six months worth of key, 'must have' reports from our Fiserv ITI system," Demmin explains. "The data within those reports are mission-critical. For example, our Monthly General Ledger is very detailed, containing a lot of very useful data for all of our accounts. Typically, it is run once at month end and again after backdated transactions have been processed. Rather than wait for a customized report or data view, I use Monarch to transform the General Ledger report file into live data, which I can use to analyze report data. I then export the data to a separate application which I use for board reporting."

"Another key report is our Monthly General Ledger Transaction Report which is over 900 pages," Demmin says. "I never know how far back I need to go for research and our live archive only has about six months of data without going to the data center to flip CD-ROMs. With Monarch, I just store 24 months or more of General Ledger Transaction data on my network folder, and with a couple of clicks, I can pull history, do my research, and get on with my job."

Demmin adds, "Monarch really shines over other database programming or data mart options when the information you need has already been produced in a core report. Clearly, Monarch provides the path of least resistance to get the data we need right away."

MONARCH MAKES EXTERNAL REPORTING A SNAP

Mission Community Bank also has significant external reporting requirements, which Monarch helps turn into a snap. "One of our external reporting requirements is our quarterly FDIC Call Reports," says Demmin. "This report requires us to disclose information from many systems. Monarch allows us to easily access needed data from reports to build files needed for FDIC reporting."

"Also, as a Certified Community Development Financial Institution, we are required to provide special reporting to the U.S. Department of Treasury (DOT)," Demmin continues. "The reporting requirements from the DOT include such historical data as information on loans that took place five years ago. Previously, obtaining that data would have been a tedious, manual process, because other report writing options can only access current data files. Getting that loan data is now as easy as retrieving our old report files, opening them in Monarch, and building Monarch templates to extract the required information. Monarch plays a significant role in helping us fulfill our external as well as our internal data needs."

MONARCH PROVIDES POWERFUL "FREEFLOW" OF INFORMATION FOR ANY FINANCIAL INSTITUTION

Monarch's ease of use for the non-technical business user makes it an excellent investment for Mission Community Bank. "Monarch is truly a visual tool that makes intuitive sense to the business end user – it's very easy to use," says Demmin. "In fact, while we have been talking about Monarch, I started – and just finished – pulling some data out of a Certificate of Deposit Report for quick marketing related report!

"Monarch's ability to extract data from any report, and then export data to Excel, satisfies a vast amount of our data analysis needs," Demmin adds. "Monarch has been a tremendous benefit for me personally and is a great complement to Fiserv/ITI. Thanks to Monarch, I have that data for reference anytime I meet with other officers of the bank."

Demmin concludes, "Any software that enables that kind of free-flow of information is very powerful. Monarch continues to offer an easy, power tool for grabbing data from reports at a lower cost with less complexity of other systems. We found a winner in Monarch!"

With Monarch, Mission Community Bank's FiServ ITI Reports Yield New Business Dividends as a Live Data Source (PDF)