LONDON & REDWOOD SHORES, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Aptitude Software (Microgen plc), the fastest-rising financial software specialist, today announced the acquisition of RevStream, the market innovator in revenue accounting and management.

Aptitude will add RevStream, the cloud-based, enterprise-grade ASC 606 and IFRS 15 revenue recognition solution to its portfolio of record-to-report specialist finance applications. The acquisition provides CFO’s with a partner that can address their many strategies and ambitions in an era when back-office ERP systems don’t support changing business models and the aspirations of financial executives.

Over the last fifteen years, the monumental shift to new high-volume business models and forceful changes to accounting rules have impeded CFO’s who want to go beyond the traditional accounting role and deliver rapid, forward-looking information and insight into their businesses.

Recent research reports show that CFO’s in all industries are affected. For example, the FSN Future of Finance Function Survey (2016 & 2017) found that 52% of finance teams spend too much time on manual transaction processing and 70% of organizations are yet to make headway in gaining ownership and control of all the data they need for effective business partnering.

Accounting for a high-volume of complex products makes delivering financial transparency a weighty burden on finance teams who work nights and weekends to just deliver statutory reporting to stakeholders such as regulators, CEO’s and investors.

Added to finance’s workload are new forceful accounting requirements brought on by the Enron scandal and 2008 financial crisis that have changed how companies must account for revenue, financial products and leases.

In the case of revenue recognition, public companies must adopt new revenue recognition policies by 1 January 2018 – a change that has been described by one former CFO as the biggest change to accounting in over twenty years. Private companies must adopt these same accounting policies by the beginning of 2019.

Unfortunately, with only months to go, only 13% of companies are more than 75% complete in the implementation of the new standard, as per a July 2017 survey from PWC. This means that over the next five years, In lieu of solutions such as those offered by Aptitude Software and RevStream, companies will face:

• Hugely increased manual workloads to deliver statutory reporting to regulators, investors and management
• Costly audits and potential litigation for companies that can’t provide evidence of compliance
• Reduced investment for those that can’t show comparability of earnings to new industry standards

Since 2015 financial software specialist Aptitude Software has taken a leadership role in enabling telecommunications operators to address IFRS 15 and ASC 606 revenue recognition requirements. The company’s customer roster includes three of the four largest North American telco’s amongst numerous other leading global operators. When including RevStream, the combined company accounts for almost $1 trillion in revenue.

The acquisition of RevStream extends Aptitude’s leadership in revenue recognition and adds to its North American presence (where 50% of Aptitude’s existing H1 2017 revenues derive). Importantly, the move gives Aptitude reach into technology, media and other sectors beyond its traditional footprint in financial services, insurance and telecoms.

The RevStream acquisition extends Aptitude winning product portfolio which includes solutions spanning compliance (i.e. IFRS 9, 15, 16 and 17), operational accounting, enterprise revenue lifecycle management, financial data integration and financial calculations. The portfolio provides CFO’s with a clear path to enhance financial control, automation and insight.

“Aptitude’s success has traditional come from our ability to help CFO’s rapidly process a very high volume of complex, business event-driven transactions and calculations” says Tom Crawford, Aptitude CEO. “With RevStream, we can offer a broader operational finance cloud platform for revenue management to mid- and large-sized companies at a time when new solutions are so desperately needed.”

About Aptitude Software

Aptitude Software delivers specialist financial applications to equip Chief Financial Officers (and the finance function) to fulfill their strategies and ambitions.

Our software helps finance to supercharge control, reporting and analysis processes. What's the secret sauce? Well, we're finance experts who develop finance-centric solutions to control and automate complex accounting processes. This enables our customers to free time from traditional accounting roles and inject rich data & insights into their businesses.

We deliver critical finance functionality to many of the world's biggest, most competitive companies.

Aptitude Software is a Microgen plc company (LSE: MCGN).

Copyright © Aptitude Software Inc. 2014-2017.

Microgen ® Microgen plc. Aptitude ™ Aptitude Software Limited.

Aptitude Revenue Recognition Engine™ Aptitude Software Limited.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170831005507/en/