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' . . . F A L C O N / FORECAST is making a significant contribution to our overall practice-development effort.' During the past twelve months, practice offices throughout the Firm have taken at least seventy-five new FALCON and FORECAST engagements on the strength of about two hundred presentations. This is the result of an effort launched last fall to introduce our computer services, particularly the FALCON/FORECAST system, to potential users across the country. Coordinated by EO partners Jule Phoenix, Al Pastino and Paul Stevens, the program offers companies computer-based tools which can help them plan for the future and make more profitable business decisions. H&S has worked with clients on financial planning and reporting almost since the inception of the Firm. Of course, early financial information systems were all manual. Several years ago, however, we began exploring computer-based solutions for clients' problems. During this process and during routine audit work, we reached certain conclusions that eventually led to the development of the FALCON/FORECAST system as well as other computer services. The idea for FALCON (which stands for FinanciAL CQA/solidation and Reporting) was the inspiration of Paul Stevens, who is based in Los Angeles. He, Los Angeles manager Barbara Harvey and former manager Ken Bitticks were largely responsible for beginning its development early in 1970. In talking with clients in the Los Angeles area to learn how they were handling their financial-reporting requirements and what they would find useful, Paul realized that company executives needed a generalized system of computer programs that was highly flexible—one that could produce financial and operating reports quickly and efficiently at departmental, divisional or corporate levels and one that could be changed without difficulty, responding to management's needs as a company regrouped or added subsidiaries or more product lines. He believed there was a real demand for a system that (1) could be operated easily by financial personnel with no particular computer expertise, (2) required no heavy investment in computer programming or hardware and (3) contained automatic controls to maintain accounting integrity. Once this approach was established, Paul, Barbara and Ken began work on the project. f\ \ he Financial Consolidation and Reporting System that resulted uses the General Electric Mark III network. Information can be entered directly into the computer system from more than 300 cities in the United States and from major locations in Canada, Europe, Japan and Australia. A l that is needed to operate the system is a computer terminal. The user can enter data, give instructions and call for reports by typing commands in English, and no computer programming is required. FALCON was designed to provide valuable management information from basic accounting and statistical data and to ensure that a company's accounting and financial personnel can be easily trained by H&S to operate it themselves. In addition, the system was designed to be flexible enough to be changed by accountants. This accounting orientation provides numerous automatic-control features, such as a record of all adjustment and elimination entries as an audit trail, which help assure the accuracy of information and speed the availability of dependable, customized management reports. FALCON automatically consolidates historical, budgeted and projected data entered into the system from a company's various reporting locations. It can handle a consolidation of virtually any size at any level within the business structure. Thus, the system can serve a wide range of companies, both large and small, in a variety of industries. FALCON performs consolidations so efficiently that this task can be done routinely on a monthly basis. The final products of our Financial Consolidation and Reporting System are the analytical and management reports—these are produced easily* and rapidly. (A report format generally requires just a few hours to code.) These statements can be prepared with different levels of detail, and executives can design their own, specifying the content, format and calculations they want. Typical of these are balance sheets; income and retained-earnings statements and statements of changes in financial position or operating data; reports comparing present financial and operating data with those of prior periods or comparing information for different companies, market areas or product lines; quarterly reports to stockholders; and special reports analyzing items such as earnings per share, depreciation, investment or inventory.