The setting of budget for the new fiscal year and the closing of the books are two of the most backbreaking time of the year for finance personnel. A recent study from Ventana research says that the Budgeting, Planning, and reporting process “consumes up to 10 to 15% of the finance department´s time and takes about 5 to 10 months’ time to complete.”
So what is it that slows down the work of the finance department?
The whole process continues to cause problems because this process cuts across several departments. We have found that most of the finance department’s concerns comes down to the 2 following problems:
- Your process is not automated
To some, planning, budgeting, and reporting consists of excel and a notepad. And just recently we talked to one big organization that still does it this way! Multiple versions of spreadsheets which are accessed by multiple people and manual consolidation of data leads to increased amount of time consumed dealing with spreadsheet errors rather than analyzing data.
- You need to wait for IT support
There are a few finance managers that are well versed in the technical aspects of databases. Unfortunately, there are not many. Rightly so, they shouldn´t have to be. Their system must be simple enough that they can champion their own tool and have full control of the process in their own hands but intelligent enough to handle the complexities.
Now these two problems are easily addressed by a robust system for reporting, budgeting, planning, and consolidating. A good CPM tool should include reporting and analysis (FP&A) capabilities.
Gartner analyst Christopher Lervolino says that “CPM solutions must have embedded analytics in order for CPM to be seen as a critical business asset. Your value as a planner greatly increases when you have the ability to perform “what-if” scenarios and rolling forecasts, which you can only do if your tools give you access to reporting and analytics.”
BP&F process does not need to be problematic. It only takes the willingness to invest in technology to propel your organization forward. If you are serious about wanting to improve how you do things today, start by looking for a CPM tool that can easily integrate, a tool that is easy to maintain and easy to use, and could easily be modeled to your unique business process with minimal IT involvement.
Performance Canvas products have helped companies shorten budget cycle times, increase profitability, manage and improve departmental performance, and facilitate organizational change. To find out how we can help your organization exceed your goals, schedule a free 30 minute demo with us at: www.performancecanvas.com if you’d like more information about this topic, or for any inquiries, please email info@dspanel.com.
DSPanel offers cutting edge technology platform for business analytics, planning, and visualization. DSPanel designs, builds, and operates with the end users in mind. Performance Canvas was created by DSPanel to answer the unarticulated needs of the market not addressed by previous available solutions. With Performance Canvas, information is transformed into valuable business insights for the business executives to utilize in their decision-making process. DSPanel currently has over 2500 organizations deploying their solutions.
