Signs That You Have Outgrown Excel for Budgeting and Planning

SMBs can perform better with cloud accounting these days

If you start to outgrow Excel, you could be missing out on the benefits that a budgeting and planning solution can provide. You could streamline your planning, increase collaboration, and run a more strategic process.

Changes are often made to budgets throughout the year to realign to changing business priorities and conditions. Version control issues can have significant consequences beyond just confusion. It means that key parts of the business can be operating from the wrong information, making decisions and spending money in ways that aren’t aligned with your business goals. A budgeting and planning solution provides one source of truth for everyone. You know who updated the budget and when. Everyone is bought in and aligned to the same plans, budgets, and forecasts.

It’s halfway through the month and you don’t have last month’s data yet?

If you do it like many companies are, every month you have downloaded the actuals to a CSV file and then cut and paste the data into Excel. Or maybe you are more sophisticated and have lookups that pull your data in from the CSV, but then you have to chase down the errors. Then you’ve got to roll it up. In the meantime, everyone is waiting on their reports to see what the actuals were from the last period, potentially delaying operational and strategic decisions. A budgeting and planning solution that integrates with your financial solution can update that information with a couple of clicks and provide immediate access to stakeholders.

Are you done digging through Emails to find budgets etc.?

Using Excel and email to send out spreadsheets means maintaining distribution lists and digging through Email to find budgets. It makes you the go-to person for even the smallest things because department heads don’t trust that they have the right data, can’t find what they need, or need you to make an update. With a budgeting and planning solution, everyone has one place to go to find their data. You can easily invite department heads to enter and update their own plans, budgets, forecasts, and scenarios. You’re no longer the bottleneck for everything budget-related.

Have you been up all night to get ready for an important meeting?

Have you spend some of your nights and weekends managing plans and budgets, an easy-to-use budgeting and planning solution can streamline the process and help you get your life back!

• Downloading CSVs
• Cutting and Pasting
• Rolling Data up
• Updating Formulas and Links
• Building and updating forceasts and models
• Emailing files

Do formula errors make you feel crazy?

We’ve all been there. You thought you double-checked everything, but you got that last minute change and forgot to update the link in your formula before the presentation to management or—yikes—the board. Your business depends on you to get the numbers right, and errors reduce their confidence and could lead to misguided decisions if not caught. With a budgeting and planning solution, you can easily calculate metrics such as cash flow or model headcount expenses—without spreadsheet errors.

Do you lack time for important analysis?

If managing budgeting and planning is so time-consuming that you’re only focused on looking backwards, you’re missing the value of budgeting and planning for your business—to look forward and figure out how to meet your short-term, medium-term and long-term plans. Budgeting and planning solutions automate everyday budget and plan management and forecasting. They provide templates for what-if analysis that help you shift your focus to the strategy and contribute to the growth and success of the business.

Here comes the perfect solution – cloud accounting!

Budgeting and planning solutions are neither difficult to deploy and integrate nor too expensive for Small to Medium Businesses. If you’ve been holding back for those reasons, then you no longer have to. Sage Intacct announced Sage Intacct Planning: a powerful, yet easy-to-use and deploy budgeting & planning solution built for smaller companies. A budgeting and planning solution provides one source of truth for everyone. You know who updated the budget and when. Everyone is bought in and aligned to the same plans, budgets, and forecasts.

Fast deployment—Pull in your chart of accounts, dimensions, and actuals from Sage Intacct and get up and running in a few days.

Collaborate across the organisation—Easily work with department heads on their budgets.

Seamless workflow with financials—Get actuals from your financials into your budgets and plans with just a few clicks.

Lower Price—Sage Intacct Planning is priced for smaller businesses like yours.

Contact us at Akuna Solutions and find out from a Sage Intacct implementation specialist how your organisation can have a finance transformation and benefit from the best cloud accounting software in Australia.

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