What to do when your budgeting & planning is broken
For most businesses the annual planning process is broken or close to be broken. First off, the actual process of preparing your budget or financial plan takes months to complete. In addition, because some managers see little benefit to the budgeting process they are dragged or forced through the process against their will. And the flip side is when finance does much of the work themselves, managers will refuse to buy in and the plan loses any credibility that is left. What’s more, once the agonizing process is finally complete, the budget is already outdated. Rather than being a useful decision-making tool, the budget becomes a disconnected document that has little or if any impact on the company’s business.
Compounding these broken processes are the underlying budgeting technologies, which in many companies are simply spreadsheets and email. While these technologies are ubiquitous and well-understood, they simply do not work well for planning. Nearly everyone by now has felt the pain of planning’s “spreadsheet hell” — the broken formulas, bug-ridden macros, manual consolidations, out-of-synch versions, and related problems which contribute to a lengthy, frustrating, and error-prone process.
Leading companies and business have learned to overcome these challenges and have gained a competitive advantage by adopting best practices for budgeting, forecasting and reporting. Furthermore, they know that the right technology can save time, reduce errors, and promote company-wide collaboration in the planning process.
By combining best practices with technology, companies can:
> Consistently deliver a more timely, accurate, and flexible plan.
> Strengthen the link between strategic objectives and operational and financial plans.
> Improve communication and collaboration among managers.
> Enhance strategic decision-making, enabling leaders to more quickly identify, analyze, and forecast the impact of changes as they occur within and around their business.
The result is a business with significantly improved financial management and stronger, more competitive business management. To see how technology can help you business click here for a free demo and 30 day trial of Quantrix. Quantrix enables organizations to replace spreadsheets for improved business performance and timely insights.