A Graphical Client-Server Approach to Financial Management

At the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN), we have an annual budget of around 600 million US dollars. In order to manage this budget successfully, fast, accurate and easy information access is required throughout the management hierarchy. To meet these goals we have focused on the powerful combination of Relational Database Technology, Fourth Generation Tools and Client-Server architecture. Using these technologies we have developed a powerful and easy-to-use management information tool (known as the BHT) which allows the follow up and tracking of expenditure at all levels throughout the organization. Executives may instantaneously produce up-to-date graphics showing the expenditure profile of the organization. These graphics may then be used as a basis for ‘zooming in’ to view more and more details until the individual financial transactions are reached (all of which are on-line and available on the user’s desktop). The graphical user interface runs on both Macintosh and PC. Using ORACLE’s SQL*Net the 400 Macintosh and PC clients can access the data which are stored in a remote ORACLE database on a SUN Server.