IDashes aims to enhance execs' access and use of company figures.

AIMEE K. WILES Bob Fetterman, center, displays iDashes' Web site with, from left, Pat Conley, chief technology officer, and Dan Harper, vice president of business development.

Using a setup much like an automobile dashboard, iDashes tracks changes in financial information.

By Richard Mullins
Democrat and Chronicle

(Monday, October 15, 2001) -- After more than two decades sifting through financial reports that could be confusing, Bob Fetterman decided there had to be a better way to present the numbers.

Instead of thumbing through pages and pages of numbers, why not turn that data into something easier to read, and more interesting, like the dashboard in a car? Then how about putting the system on the Internet so executives could quickly check on key figures from any computer in the world?

The idea grew into iDashes Inc., a Perinton company Fetterman founded in May 2000 to produce and sell such technology.

"Many executives can read and digest everything," says Fetterman, a former chief financial officer at Constellation Brands Inc. "A lot work through it with more difficulty, and if they are faced with a lot of numbers they focus on what they are most comfortable with, instead of what may be most important."

Since its founding, iDashes has hired nine employees, raised more than $1 million in financing and signed about a dozen customers to use a trial version of the software. IDashes maintains a special site to hold specific financial data for customers.

Customers for the trial include High Falls Brewing Co., Seneca Foods Corp. and Vanteon Corp.

"As new employees in the leadership of the company, we had a lot of data but not as much key information at our fingertips to help understand what we needed to understand on a day-to-day basis," said John Henderson, chief operating officer at High Falls Brewing, which managers bought from Genesee Corp. last summer.

Henderson uses the iDashes system closer to the end of the month to gauge the company's finances, but traveling salespeople use it much more frequently, he said.

Often, he said, "the data was there but not in a readily available and accessible form. This has screened it to make the data more available." On the sites set up by iDashes, users view "dials" that rise or fall with changes. With a click on the dial, the user can see the data behind it, or notes on why something changed, or a basic definition of terms.

Users -- typically executives -- enter a password and user name; encryption protects the data from prying eyes. "This is actually much, much stronger security than the ways companies usually handle their financial data," Fetterman says. "Many just e-mail someone an Excel spread sheet, which is just totally open and uses no encryption at all."

The service takes less than 30 days to set up, the company says, and costs about $1,000 a month for a basic system. Larger systems with more specific data cost more.

A new product called ProjectDash, coming next year, works the same way but can track resources, deadlines and customer satisfaction.

Partly to help publicize itself, iDashes set up a free site on the Internet called EconDash.net that tracks key economic indicators such as inflation, personal income and gross domestic product.

For now, the company is financed through angel investors -- individuals and executives who bought stakes in the company. In the next three to five years, Fetterman expects more consolidation in the Web services industry.

"Probably that means an acquisition," he said.

Another possibility is an initial public offering of stock.

For more about the company, go to:

http://www.idashes.net/