Financial budgeting software is a tool that is meant to support the finance department´s execution of the budget process. The goal is that a company´s corporate financial budgeting should effectively link strategy and its execution.
These days many decision makers such as CFOs, CEOs, senior accountants or finance managers are looking for a financial budgeting software that can reduce their purchase and implementation costs, increase their business agility, and shorten the time for when the software gives them the intended return of investment.
So then the question – what makes a budgeting software the best financial budgeting software?
As previously mentioned, these corporate financial budgeting software are used within the finance department to enhance their overall efficiency and to enforce better control in their budgeting and planning process.
With the expectations of finance departments and finance leaders constantly evolving, we live in a time where everyone in the finance department are expected to provide sound advise to the decision makers or at least support their decision making process with valuable insights.
Many budgeting software vendors just basically copy each other´s features and capabilities. If they see a good and successful innovation from a competitor, they try to replicate it as soon as possible so most vendors claim roughly the same features. However, not all software are created equal. Some are just really better than others in how they develop the capabilities and in how they plan it so that the software as a whole feels like a complete and integrated solution.
When evaluating a corporate financial budgeting software, here are the features that constitutes what is dubbed as ”the best financial budgeting software”. These are based on customer feedback and finance consultants input in the last 5 years from 2013-2018.
- Installation and provisioning time required
Finance departments are not anymore as understanding and welcoming of software that takes months or years to install and setup. These days, finance departments want as little disruption of finance operations as possible and that means that their new budgeting software must have a quick install and provisioning feature.
For cloud, it must happen within minutes and for on premises, it must not be more than 40 hours to install and provision.
- User-friendly dashboard and ease of maintenance
Figuring out how to use the software must not require so much effort. It should look and feel easy to figure out. If as a user your first instinct is ”that might be difficult to use” then you are probably right.
On top of that, maintaining a budgeting software should not have to require too much support from the vendors. Maintaining it must be easy enough for your own finance or IT department to manage.
- SIE4/Onprem Connector/REST connection services
The best financial budgeting software must be able to integrate with different source and target systems. Having a built-in onprem connector or REST services connector or SIE4 connector makes implementing and using the system easy and more integrated.
In fact, budgeting solutions that are not able to offer these should be eliminated from the evaluation because they will not be very sustainable and scalable in the long run.
- Workflow and user access management
A long time ago it was okay to have these complicated modelers that only the technically savvy people can figure out. These days, it is important that making modifications to the workflow or organizational hierarchy or even granting access rights to people be done in the easiest possible way.
The budgeting software should be owned solely by the finance department. They shouldn’t have to depend on any other department for any simple modifications.
- Modular add-ons
The best financial budgeting software first and foremost offers prepackaged finance logic such as CAPEX, OPEX, cash flow etc. More than that, if an organization wants to start small and cautiously, it should be an option.
Therefore, it is important that a software vendor allows updates or additions of finance modules later on when a company feels ready for it. These finance modules can be in the form of additional profitability analysis module or accounts receivable/accounts payable module.
- Account management and support efforts
Installing and getting it to work is only half the battle. The real battle and test of a software is the account management and support you as a customer gets when you are up and running.
Make sure there is geographical coverage in your area and that getting them to help you in case you have questions will be easy. There should be a clear process for opening support questions be it via ticket or phone or email.
- Overall costs
With corporate financial budgeting software, you get what you pay for. However, that doesnt mean that the most expensive are the best and the cheapest are the worse. In fact, due to the fierce competition, many vendors are now trying to pack their software with capabilities to the brim for a fraction of what they used to offer it for.
Make sure that you look into not just the license costs but also other costs such as consulting costs or potential upgrade costs.
Performance Canvas Financials
If you are looking for a capable corporate financial budgeting software, check out www.performancecanvas.com. Performance Canvas Financials offers both cloud-based or on premises deployment for its customers depending on the identified need or corporate strategy. You can book a free online walk through of this budgeting software by emailing 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.
