Was there a modern budgeting and forecasting system under your Christmas tree?

As another festive season passes it can only mean one thing for experienced finance professionals, it’s time to start preparing for next FY’s budget and planning process.

If you’re like the majority of finance professionals out there, this very quickly snaps you out of the festive season-high and brings you back to a sobering reality, as we remember the late nights updating inputs and calculating new versions of the same budget. All this because your organisation hasn’t invested in the technology to support and enhance this vital process. Instead they, and you, continue to rely on somewhat out-dated and very likely error-prone Excel spreadsheet-based systems.

For all the benefits spreadsheet-based systems bring, there are also risks, risks which have been well documented over the years. When Excel was initially released it wasn’t expected or designed to be used for enterprise-wide collaborative functions, like budgeting and forecasting. But the fact is that because it can be, it is.

Is your budgeting & forecasting software secure?

One issue often overlooked in the wide use of Excel for budgeting, planning and forecasting processes is the lack of security. Excel is an accommodating business tool and provides an easy place for any planning and forecasting calculations, all based on a dump of data, generally from a secured system. Sensitive data is extracted from these secured systems into spreadsheets. Calculations are done, budgets and plans are generated, and along the way, these spreadsheets are shared amongst colleagues. But this once secured data is no longer. Once dumped into Excel it has jumped the walls of data security policy and is free to roam and be shared without hindrance, or record.

With barely a week going by without news of another data breach, it is important to consider all the places someone could get their hands on your data. Your data is only as secure as its weakest point, and that is often your Excel-based system.

Modern budgeting and forecasting platforms help to mitigate this risk, through improved controls for managing user access, data encryption, and audit and compliance capability. Modern systems will not only prevent non-authorised users from accessing your data, but they also allow you to control what data authorised users can see. Prevent certain employees from seeing information from specific business areas, done. Only allow senior management to see employee salary details in the budget process, done. Only the right users will have the right to access the right data, ensuring your sensitive data remains secure throughout the budgeting and planning process.

Successful companies who implement these modern platforms to support best practice in the Planning processes not only get the security benefits but they also gain the ability to easily adjust forecasts when things change.

A modern planning system doesn’t mean significant changes from a user’s perspective, they will still have all the required flexibility and function as with a spreadsheet, only with much greater scale. These modern systems also allow for greater collaboration amongst staff, and consistency of inputs and drivers, as many processes and calculations across the organisation are linked to the same data definitions and drivers.

Final Thoughts

By bringing the budgeting and forecasting process into a single collaborative platform,  companies benefit greatly in terms of time, accuracy and detail, and from a reduction in risk. All this achieved through reduced spreadsheet-sharing and the accompanying sporadic uncontrolled proliferation of information. 

Our experience has shown the earlier in the business process a company starts using these modern technologies and tools the better the outcomes, but like most things, it’s never too late to start. Investment at the right time in the right technology should be your business’s top priority…don’t wait to put it on your next list to Santa!