Spreadsheets have come a long way in financial planning and budgeting. Excel formulas blew us away with how easy it was to get the results we needed. But over time, as businesses grew more complex, the need for more data has surpassed the limitations of old spreadsheets.
Data visualization is both new and necessary as business models and drivers get more complex. Forward-looking organizations that are focused on scaling have long outgrown spreadsheets.
While spreadsheets helped with financial planning, today’s modern organizations need FP&A planning solutions to offer more advanced features that cut through time-consuming reports.
Advanced FP&A software is the future of business processes
Some Excel users may ask what financial planning and analysis software can achieve that a spreadsheet cannot.
Consider some of the benefits of FP&A software over Excel-based budgeting, accounting, and financial planning.
While a spreadsheet can be customized to a company’s needs, it lacks discipline. No one can ensure data integrity and enforce stringent practices to ensure your data is precise and updated.
But FP&A software lets users create and enforce business logic for sophisticated planning, editing, and calculations. This reduces mistakes while allowing firms to tailor their strategy.
Create New Planning Models
The development of a budget or planning worksheet may be a lengthy procedure. The same spreadsheet (or a variant of it) is used again. This is OK until a firm wishes to move to, or even test, a different model.
FP&A software allows firms to implement new models like rolling projections quickly. Training and familiarizing the new procedure takes time, but the model’s mechanics are no longer an issue.
Validating Data
Excel cannot validate data on its own. A complicated spreadsheet’s architecture and algorithms must be independently evaluated and validated for correctness.
Good FP&A software includes data validation. There is no requirement for external data validation tools or manual formula and data checking.
Creating Dashboards
Excel data visualization is complex. It can be done, but just not swiftly enough or without professional program expertise.
Generally, excellent FP&A software provides access to business intelligence tools that enable building visualizations and dashboards rapidly and more straightforward. Dashboards may be automatically updated by integrating with other business systems like your ERP.
Automate FP&A Processes
FP&A software like Performance Canvas can help automate and enhance forecasting and budgeting processes for businesses dealing with large volumes of financial data. More advanced FP&A software can help financial teams dive swiftly into their respective sectors, automatically pulling data from multiple data sources efficiently.
Modern FP&A software also ensures data gathering is precise and helps avoid common errors in regular spreadsheets. This sort of FP&A solution is especially relevant now that organizations are gathering data on business drivers and financial data.
FP&A teams may effectively negotiate forecast adjustments with their business partners instead of disengaging the company because the forecast is too “financially driven” and lacks commercial relevance. FP&A teams may effectively negotiate forecast adjustments with their business partners. Finance and business ownership can enhance prediction accuracy and budget responsibility.
Businesses may use FP&A software to predict and budget technologies like scenario analysis, data visualization, and simple access to all stakeholders to increase analytics and reporting capabilities.
Planning for the Future with Modern FP&A
These days, you need to plan for uncertainty to survive complex and volatile business environments. To remain competitive, organizations cannot afford long implementation timeframes for their finance and accounting processes.
To survive, businesses must learn to adapt to new tools that can help them implement time-saving solutions like Performance Canvas Financials(PCF).
PCF is a step ahead by providing integrated self-service budgeting, planning, forecasting, reporting, and consolidation. It supports driver-based budgeting and automates workflows with budget submission and approval workflows. It comes with unlimited what-if modeling and budget roll-up reports.
Get in touch with our team today and see how PCF can work for your business.
