Budgeting Doesn’t Have to Be a Burden

While they might not complain about it, most managers and department heads dread budgeting. The process drags on for months and months. Inboxes explode with a constant deluge of spreadsheet attachments. The sinking feeling that comes with working on a spreadsheet for hours only to discover that you’re working on an old version while a newer version of the spreadsheet has been circulating.

How energized would your management team be if the budgeting process could be reduced from months to weeks?

How much more productive would their efforts be if there was no margin for error because every time they logged in to work on the budget they are automatically presented with the most recent version? How much more confident would you feel in your financial position if you were regularly getting real time, departmental level projections?

We’ve seen all of this realized within organizations using Adaptive Insights as the centralized, web-based solution for collaborative budgeting. By eliminating manual, clerical tasks associated with spreadsheet-based planning, these organizations have been able to focus on deeper analysis and strategic business decisions.

And, like all the products in our portfolio, Adaptive Insights is an on-demand, cloud-based, Software as a Service (SaaS) solution – meaning speedy deployment, anytime/anywhere access, lower costs, faster ROI – for an annual subscription.

Adaptive Insights Budgeting & Forecasting offers the following features:

• Complete set of Planning Components and Financial Statements – Plan personnel, expenses, sales, and capital. Link elements to create a complete set of dynamic financial statements, including Cash Flow, Balance Sheet, and Income Statement.
• Metrics – Extend you plan beyond the Chart of Accounts. Budget and forecast any data required for you model, including operational metrics.
• Automated Consolidation – Automatically consolidate changes at the department level into the corporate plan, eliminating broken links and manual “cut and paste” exercises.
• Configurable Data Entry Sheets – Provide managers with intuitive, spreadsheet-like data entry sheets that are customized to only show relevant data.
• Multi-dimensional Data Collection – Provide users with a simple and intuitive way to plan across multiple dimensions (e.g. product, geography, customers, etc.).
• Dynamic Formulas – Create formulas in any data cell, just like a spreadsheet. Reference data and assumptions from other cells, including financial and operational accounts in other subplans, to create dynamic, driver-based plans. Formulas can be established centrally for easy modification across the model.
• Drill-Down – See where data originated via real-time drill-down capabilities.
• Notations – Add notes to document budgeting and forecasting assumptions. Notes rollup with sheets, so managers with broader responsibilities can see notes from all sub-plans in one place.
• Workflow – Automatically manage the plan submission and approval process. Department managers can submit their completed plans for approval, and their managers can then submit their plans, until the entire version is approved.
• Web-based Access – Perform budgeting, forecasting and reporting from any web browser at any time. No new software, hardware, or IT support required.

InnoVergent has helped numerous organizations reduce budgeting and forecasting cycle times while simplifying and standardizing data collection across the organization. Other benefits you’ll enjoy is the ability to deliver more complete and frequent forecasts (including rolling forecasts) along with “what if?” analysis – all the while decreasing the hassle, errors and time associated with the traditional multiple spreadsheet disbursement model.

Let us know if we can unburden you from unnecessarily cumbersome budgeting.