In addition to simplifying and streamlining a largely manual process, many of the companies and businesses we meet want to increase the ownership and quality of their work – but don’t know how.
In previous blog posts I have focused on how you know when it’s time to leave Excel and how you choose the right system for budget, forecast and planning. In this post, I will focus on how you can simplify your budgeting and forecasting and at the same time increase efficiency and quality.
We recommend delegating the responsibility for input in the financial planning process to the part of your business that has the most insight. Not only does this increase the quality of your work, but those who contribute to the planning process also feel a higher sense of ownership and more motivated to realize the goals that is stipulates.
To successfully delegate this responsibility and increase ownership, the process must be simple enough for the business to understand. It must also be simple for the business (who often lack accounting skills) to contribute with input. To succeed, you need to abandon account-based budgeting as much as possible and use driver-based elements so you can clarify what drives revenue and expenses, as well as how those with responsibility in the business can influence both their budget and outcome.
A modern and user-friendly system with customized input templates, and budget-drivers based on your unique business logic, makes the process easier to understand. This will also increase the opportunity for you to reach a high ownership within the business. An intuitive and logical user-interface further makes it possible for the user to understand connections and how the process works.
With a more automated system, the financial department and CFO:s don’t have to bother with all of the manual work such as consolidating Excel-sheets. They can instead focus on their expertise and manage the overall parts of the planning process. They get more time to support the business in the planning process, to analyze the budget and forecast, to make what-if scenarios as well as attest the different parts.
The planning process thus becomes easier and more effective, and the quality increases.
Please feel free to contact me or one of my colleagues if you have any questions, or if you would like a demonstration of Planacy and how it can streamline and increase the quality of your unique processes.
