When it comes to planning for the future, the worldwide epidemic has acted as a type of wake-up call. Finance departments that put off implementing critical changes to their planning systems and procedures, or who were content with a business-as-usual approach to budgeting and forecasting, rapidly learned that their status quo had become a status no.
However, after negotiating the complexity and uncertainty of the COVID-19 era, a sense of hope appears to be building. Many CFOs see a bright future ahead of them, and they want to capitalize on it by leveraging technology. This is where using modern FP&A software comes into play.
Getting everyone in your organization involved in the decision process early on can help you align on your weak areas and analyze opportunities for growth.
However, before you start looking for options, make a list of your top priorities and those of your stakeholders. Identify the skills you require now and evaluate what you will need in the future, as your requirements will vary as your business evolves.
To get everyone working together, you don’t have to ditch spreadsheets entirely or rewrite your entire software stack (and doing so may make more enemies than friends). However, you will want a centralized planning platform on which everyone can readily communicate and a platform that allows real-time data integration from numerous sources. This integration will result in a single source of truth (rather than dozens of Excel spreadsheets creating endless version control headaches). And it’s crucial for automation, which is a critical component of financial planning.
Here’s a checklist of crucial features for every cloud FP&A solution.
Simple to use and manage
While some may think that cloud FP&A solutions are more complex, the premise behind why they exist is to simplify your financial budgeting, planning, analysis, and reporting needs. Therefore, the right cloud FP&A tool should be just that — easy to use. You can’t have every member of your organization grappling with a tool that requires hours of training to set up and use. The ideal FP&A solution should be user-friendly and one that requires virtually no upkeep.
Scalable
It would be beneficial to have an advanced FP&A tool that could grow with your company. More advanced FP&A solutions are designed to fulfill your current demands and have the adaptability to meet future requirements through add-ons. It would be good to consider solutions that come with automation, machine learning, predictive algorithms, and dynamic financial modeling, as these breakthroughs are set to continue to change the game for finance.
Robust
Having the ability to harness large volumes of data will continue to be a necessity for organizations. To be future-ready, your FP&A solution should have no problems gathering and interpreting large amounts of data now and into the future.
Economical
Choose a planning tool that won’t cost you a fortune. This is crucial not just for this year’s budget, but as usage of your action planning model rises, you can quickly welcome additional users without fear of exceeding your budget.
Feature-packed and Customizable
Every organization and technological environment has unique requirements, including yours. Find a system that can be customized to plan in the same way that you manage your organization.
Performance Canvas Financials: Your Next Cloud FP&A Solution
Performance Canvas Financials (PCF) has sophisticated AI capabilities that equip financial teams with the tools they need to meet any difficulties in financial planning, forecasting, and reporting in 2021 and beyond.
It optimizes the financial process, assists CFOs and finance teams in gaining more significant insights from historical data, and accelerates financial audits and reporting. It also reduces the possibility of inaccuracies in essential reports.
It is a completely integrated solution that integrates financial reporting and consolidation, planning, budgeting, and team performance monitoring. For speedier adoption, teams may seamlessly connect it with their current ERP system.
Reach out to the PCF team for a free demo or enquire about available packages .
