April 2010

AMBIT OPTIMIST 7 GETTING STARTED GUIDE 1
Initial Login ............................................................................................................................................ 2
Getting Started ..................................................................................................................................... 3
Loading Historical Data ......................................................................................................................... 4
Analysis of Financials ............................................................................................................................. 5
Analysis Screens ................................................................................................................................ 5
Strategy ................................................................................................................................................. 6
What If? ............................................................................................................................................. 7
Goalseeking ...................................................................................................................................... 8
Explore Results .................................................................................................................................. 9
Worksheets ..................................................................................................................................... 10
Reporting ............................................................................................................................................ 11
Print ................................................................................................................................................. 11
Export .............................................................................................................................................. 11
Consolidate Reports ....................................................................................................................... 12
Copy Reports .................................................................................................................................. 12
Budgeting ............................................................................................................................................ 13
Step 1: Projection............................................................................................................................ 14
Step 2: Annual Spread .................................................................................................................... 15
Step 3: Budget vs. Actuals .............................................................................................................. 16
Step 4: Annualize ............................................................................................................................ 17
Step 5: Append ............................................................................................................................... 18
CONFIDENTIAL | © 2010 SunGard
Trademark Information: SunGard, the SunGard logo and Ambit are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of SunGard.

AMBIT OPTIMIST 7 GETTING STARTED GUIDE 2
When you first open the application, you may be presented with a dialog box which appears like this:
The default login for this program is:
User Name : <Admin>
Password : < >
Once your product administrator has performed user administration, this login may be changed or removed from the system entirely. You may be logged in automatically, or you may be assigned a login name and password.
If you have been assigned a login name and password, you can change your password within the application by clicking: s e t t i n g s m e n u > c h a n g e p a s s w o r d
For further assistance see your local product administrator.
CONFIDENTIAL | © 2010 SunGard
Trademark Information: SunGard, the SunGard logo and Ambit are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of SunGard.

AMBIT OPTIMIST 7 GETTING STARTED GUIDE 3
This guide has been designed to get you up and running with the application within an hour.
The diagram demonstrates our unique approach to Financial Analysis, Strategy and
Communication. The standard workflow for operating this program is to Load, Analyze,
Strategize, Explore, Worksheet and Report.
LOADING financial data for multiple periods in minutes; and create Budgets and Projections.
ANALYZE financial trends, view graphical ‘snapshots’ of performance measures and identify key business issues.
STRATEGIZE by planning your future business goals, using powerful Projection, What If?, Goalseeking and
Benchmarking tools.
EXPLORE your underlying key success criteria, relying on a simple flowchart approach diagramming those Key Results.
WORKSHEETS are used to perform in-depth financial or industry analysis.
REPORT , measure and communicate your current position, past strategies and future goals.
While learning this application, we recommend that you follow the designated order of functions and screens detailed in the following pages. For assistance with more advanced program functionality, refer to the Help, available through the Help menu.
CONFIDENTIAL | © 2010 SunGard
Trademark Information: SunGard, the SunGard logo and Ambit are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of SunGard.

AMBIT OPTIMIST 7 GETTING STARTED GUIDE 4
To enter the Loading screen, open the application and create a new model, or open an existing model. Clicking the Loading tab in the lower-left corner of the screen returns you to the
Loading screen if you have already navigated elsewhere in the application. Loading provides an area to input Financials for further analysis.
Create a new model, selecting the appropriate number of statement periods, the period length and end date for the first period of the model.
Open Model Properties from the File menu. Enter information about the model, including non-financial information such as company name and contact details.
Open Statement Properties from the File menu. Enter information as required about each period, such as whether the accounts have been audited.
Input financial values into high-level (Parent) accounts, as well as detail-level (Child) accounts. Note how certain accounts, such as
Retained Earnings are calculated for you.
Ensure all statement periods are balanced. Save the model to your hard drive or connected network drive, then continue to the
Analysis screens.
CONFIDENTIAL | © 2010 SunGard
Trademark Information: SunGard, the SunGard logo and Ambit are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of SunGard.

AMBIT OPTIMIST 7 GETTING STARTED GUIDE 5
Enter the Analysis screen by clicking the Analysis tab in the lower-left corner of the screen. This area provides a series of graphs and charts that analyze the historical makeup of your business over the last four periods. You can examine the Financials, which make up these periods, in order to determine and measure the success of all business functions.
This application offers an insightful look at your Financials through a world-class analysis approach, adopted by
Accounting professionals, bankers and businesses throughout the world.
Our methodology examines:
 Profitability
 Balance Sheet and Working Capital
 Cash Flow
 Return on Assets and Investment
 Funding Requirements
This powerful approach to analyzing financial data is encapsulated in our interactive Analysis screens, and supported by Xpert Help, a set of tips and focus points to assist interpretation of the screens.
The goal of the Analysis screens is
Turning Numbers into Knowledge .
Once you have analyzed the performance of the business, you will be in a position to develop strategies to improve performance.
CONFIDENTIAL | © 2010 SunGard
Trademark Information: SunGard, the SunGard logo and Ambit are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of SunGard.

AMBIT OPTIMIST 7 GETTING STARTED GUIDE 6
Enter the Strategy screen by clicking the Strategy tab in the lower-left corner of the screen. You can perform What Ifs? on Drivers and Financials, as well as Goalseek on financial Results.
You can perform a What If? in this screen, which is adjusting any Driver, Income Statement or
Balance Sheet value, in order to stress test your business and develop strategies.
You can also perform a Goalseek in this screen, which allows you to set a goal for any given business measure and then identify a strategy to achieve this goal. In order to reach the goal, you adjust one or many of the set of values presented by the software which affect the business measure. To perform a Goalseek, enter a new value into any of the Results cells in the Strategy screen.
CONFIDENTIAL | © 2010 SunGard
Trademark Information: SunGard, the SunGard logo and Ambit are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of SunGard.

AMBIT OPTIMIST 7 GETTING STARTED GUIDE 7
You should consider what change would be useful to test. Ask questions such as, “What if interest rates rise?”, or, “What if we increase price?”
To begin the What If?, enter the Strategy screen (or Explore screens), and type a new value for any Driver or financial value.
This will update all associated values on the screen.
Clicking the Net Change button shows the effect of the most recent What If? only by displaying the movement for items which have been impacted.
Should you wish to do more than one What If? in your strategy, you can open the What If? Monitor from the Tools menu to display the list of all changes. You can even print a What If?
Report showing the before and after financial position.
You can apply a Benchmark to view the entity’s performance relative to industry standards. Click Benchmark from the Tools menu and choose an appropriate benchmark. You can also view the benchmark properties from the Tools menu.
Now click the Benchmark Monitor button on the toolbar to view the traffic lights or turn them off. Highlights in green, orange or red indicate performance relative to the Benchmark.
CONFIDENTIAL | © 2010 SunGard
Trademark Information: SunGard, the SunGard logo and Ambit are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of SunGard.

AMBIT OPTIMIST 7 GETTING STARTED GUIDE 8
When conducting a Goalseek, you should consider which Result is showing a weakness, and set a reasonable goal or value for this improvement.
To begin the Goalseek, enter the Strategy (or Explore Results) screen, and input a new value into any Result.
CONFIDENTIAL | © 2010 SunGard
Trademark Information: SunGard, the SunGard logo and Ambit are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of SunGard.

AMBIT OPTIMIST 7 GETTING STARTED GUIDE 9
In the Goalseek screen, you can adjust the Drivers, which are listed in order of sensitivity.
The yellow Goal fields suggest the value which, if input into Strategy, will achieve the Goal objective. You can adjust one or multiple Drivers by typing values into the white Strategy fields.
Before accepting the change, you can print a Strategy report, by clicking the What If? Report from the Tools menu.
If the Goalseek strategy is accepted, you are returned to the previous screen, and the strategy has been implemented. Cancel returns to the previous screen without changing any Financials.
Clicking Reset will clear the Goalseek screen without returning to the previous screen, allowing further strategies to be entered as required.
Enter the Explore Results screens by clicking the Explore tab on the lower-left navigation bar.
This area of the product provides a series of flowcharts which display the makeup of a number of financial Key Results. Navigate between Results by clicking a Result from list displayed on the left-hand panel.
In this section, you will view a screen showing the make-up of the individual Result, as illustrated in the following diagram:
CONFIDENTIAL | © 2010 SunGard
Trademark Information: SunGard, the SunGard logo and Ambit are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of SunGard.

AMBIT OPTIMIST 7 GETTING STARTED GUIDE 10
The screens available here display four types of cells:
1.
Yellow fields containing Income Statement Values and Drivers
2.
Blue fields containing Balance Sheet Values and Drivers
3.
Gray fields containing non-editable summation Values
4.
White fields containing Results
As well as viewing which Financials and Drivers are integral to the selected Result, you can perform What Ifs? and Goalseeks in this area by changing the values in the cells, as you would in the Strategy screen.
Worksheets provide advanced analysis functionality for Power Users of this software application.
Worksheets may provide detailed financial analyses or Industry-specific measures. For further detail, view the Help file.
CONFIDENTIAL | © 2010 SunGard
Trademark Information: SunGard, the SunGard logo and Ambit are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of SunGard.

AMBIT OPTIMIST 7 GETTING STARTED GUIDE 11
Enter the Reports screen by clicking the Reports tab on the lower-left navigation bar. This application provides reports which offer advanced feedback and analysis based on an entity's
Financials.
You can review reports, and print or export them to different formats.
To open a report, click the report name. The report will then be displayed in a print-preview format.
The Print Toolbar provides a number of functions:
You can print the current report by clicking one of the following: p r i n t b u t t o n f i l e m e n u > p r i n t
As well as printing the current page, you can export the current report to several different formats; PDF, HTML, RTF, TIFF, and PPT.
 PDF format is a protected file format viewable in Adobe Acrobat, and is a web standard file.
 HTML format is a file format that defines the content and layout of a web page. HTML is an acronym standing for hyper-text markup language.
 RTF is a rich text format file, which can be opened by several Microsoft programs, including Word and PowerPoint.
 TIFF is an uncompressed image file format, which can be embedded into documents or printed at a high-quality resolution.
 PPT is a file format that is associated with digital documents created in Microsoft
PowerPoint
You can use the Export button or click File menu > Export Reports to send your report to one of the formats described above.
CONFIDENTIAL | © 2010 SunGard
Trademark Information: SunGard, the SunGard logo and Ambit are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of SunGard.

AMBIT OPTIMIST 7 GETTING STARTED GUIDE 12
Consolidate Reports allows you to select more than one report and bundle them together to print or export.
You can copy the report text into the Microsoft Clipboard so it can then be pasted into other applications such as Microsoft Excel.
CONFIDENTIAL | © 2010 SunGard
Trademark Information: SunGard, the SunGard logo and Ambit are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of SunGard.

AMBIT OPTIMIST 7 GETTING STARTED GUIDE 13
The budgeting process is an advanced loading technique that provides you with a simple progression:
CONFIDENTIAL | © 2010 SunGard
Trademark Information: SunGard, the SunGard logo and Ambit are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of SunGard.

AMBIT OPTIMIST 7 GETTING STARTED GUIDE 14
Create an Annual Projection of your data from the Loading or Strategy screen:
You should ensure all previous period Financials are completely filled out before initiating a Projection.
Begin a Projection and enter the number of periods to project forward.
You can adjust Drivers to anticipate future conditions. All periods are projected on a ‘straight line’ basis, using the
Driver values.
Click OK , and the projection periods are added to the current model. Save your new model.
CONFIDENTIAL | © 2010 SunGard
Trademark Information: SunGard, the SunGard logo and Ambit are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of SunGard.

AMBIT OPTIMIST 7 GETTING STARTED GUIDE 15
In the Loading screen, create a monthly or quarterly spread of your projection:
Open the Annual projection period that you wish to spread.
Initiate the Annual Spread by clicking Spread from the
Tools menu.
Select either monthly or quarterly periods, as required.
Adjust the individual periods for seasonal influences and peak periods in sales.
Click Done and a new model will be created using the data from the last annual period. This will be your monthly or quarterly budget / forecast. The previous period is also saved to ensure continuity. Save your model.
CONFIDENTIAL | © 2010 SunGard
Trademark Information: SunGard, the SunGard logo and Ambit are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of SunGard.

AMBIT OPTIMIST 7 GETTING STARTED GUIDE 16
Compare your actuals with your budget values:
Over time, the business Actuals become available. At this time you can enter real (Actual) values against the budget. To do this, open your monthly or quarterly budget and save it as a new model. Then simply type over the budget values with Actuals.
To analyze the actual performance of the business compared to the budget, click the Model Comparison item in the Tools menu.
Click the Budget vs. Actuals option.
Note that the models selected must have the same number of periods in order to be compared for a Budget vs. Actuals report.
The Budget vs. Actuals report displays variance in both currency and percentage. You can Print or Export the report.
CONFIDENTIAL | © 2010 SunGard
Trademark Information: SunGard, the SunGard logo and Ambit are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of SunGard.

AMBIT OPTIMIST 7 GETTING STARTED GUIDE 17
Once you have collected all the Actual data for each period in the year, you will want to create an annual model.
Click Annualize Model from the Tools menu, to start the process. Click Yes to create the new annual model.
Click Save to save this new annual model.
CONFIDENTIAL | © 2010 SunGard
Trademark Information: SunGard, the SunGard logo and Ambit are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of SunGard.

AMBIT OPTIMIST 7 GETTING STARTED GUIDE 18
Once you have annualized your Actuals, you will wish to append these to your previous period Actuals, so to compare the performance of the business over time.
Open the annual model for the previous periods.
Click Append Period from the Edit menu. Select the current period annual model.
Select the period or statement required from that model.
The period selected is appended to the end of the existing model.
Save the model, using the Save As command so to name your model a different name.
CONFIDENTIAL | © 2010 SunGard
Trademark Information: SunGard, the SunGard logo and Ambit are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of SunGard.