Dublin-based company, EPS Software, has secured the Irish franchise for Timeline - software which can examine the accounting systems of companies and translate them into Microsoft Excel's spreadsheet.

The financial analysis package is expected to save financial controllers thousands of pounds and a lot of time wasted re-keying information into PCs.

Many accountants cannot produce reports in modern-day formats owing to older accounting software packages.

Timeline's software suite intelligently links the Microsoft desktop to any financial transaction system. Its applications: M.V. Analyst, M.V. Server and M.V. Budgeting, are already used by a number of British companies, including the Inland Revenue, Lloyds of London and Legal and General.