If there's one thing you can do to get on the nice list permanently within your organisation, it's having an agile budgeting process in place. Not only does this style of operational planning and budgeting lead to quicker decision making, it keeps an eye on your short-and-long-term objectives and allows you to create a roadmap ahead using scenario modelling and forecasting. Agile budgeting also helps achieve operational alignment by keeping key players from various departments on the same page and focusing on the critical financial and operations performance data that matter to the company. But perhaps most important of all, agile budgeting helps organisations stay flexible by managing risks, but leaving room for change.
Bottom line: Organised budgeting and forecasting processes help your business achieve more in less time. Don't know where to begin? Here are five best practices to help you create more agile budgets--and stay off that naughty list once and for all.
1. Automate Manual Data Entries for the Ultimate Comfort and Joy
Keeping your business competitive in today's super-charged, fast-paced market requires harmonious processes. If your company relies on data that's not easily accessible, manual data entry can quickly become a bottleneck that does harm to your organisation's bottom line. Luckily, Vena's financial reporting software helps automate your financial reporting processes so you can spend more time delivering the analysis and insights that make your business jingle all the way. From comparing financials to reviewing actuals, Vena helps you pull timely information together so you don't have to waste time consolidating data into your reports, dashboards or templates.
Discover how Vena’s budgeting and forecasting software can take your planning cycle to the next level.
The data-driven decision making of today calls for never-before-seen levels of importance for collecting and analyzing data. The problem is, most companies spend way too much time debating which numbers to use, as different sources produce different numbers. How do you eliminate the confusion? Establishing a single source of truth, that's how. And Vena's planning software can help you do just that. You'll be able to create real-time, long-term forecasts in minutes based on data from a single source so you can make the decisions that drive your business.
Keeping all the budgeting, forecasting and planning to yourself? Bah humbug. It's time to involve the entire workshop in budgeting and forecasting. To keep things running like a well-oiled production line, you need accurate data from a wide range of sources to ensure budgeting and forecasting is on point. That means you should consider this task a team effort so everyone is on the same page and has a clear understanding of their needs. Plus, having all of your elves with their finger on the pulse in all the different departments can give you the data you need to make accurate predictions and set realistic budgets. It also allows them to offer their perspectives on where business is now and where it could be in the future.
Where the budget is a quantified expectation for what your business wants to achieve, a forecast is an estimate of what will actually be achieved based on your numbers. And as any good business elf knows, both budgeting and forecast need to go where the cold wind blows. If needs change, so must your plan, as basing major business decisions on outdated data can put a serious damper on growth. Vena's financial forecasting software empowers you to make quick top-down adjustments to your forecasts to meet those last-minute deadlines while building agility.
The last thing you want to do is rely on guesswork in developing plans for the whole workshop. Not only could it lead to inefficient operations and spending, it could put your workshop at financial risk. That's why it's important to keep a watchful eye on anything and everything that could impact your financial outcome now or in the future, such as customer behaviour, headcount, profit targets, cash flow targets, the list goes on. These metrics measure how well sales processes are performing and with the help of scenario modelling, will allow your elves to mitigate risks and make improvements before it's too late. Managing your end-to-end budget process with intuitive and data-informed workflow tools will help all your elves proactively plan for your daily, weekly, monthly and yearly needs, ensuring alignment to strategic goals, yet leaving room in your budget to adjust to change when needed. What's more, data visualisation tools can help you discover hidden insights and to act on them faster, leading to smarter decisions and better outcomes for your entire workshop.
Nothing will bring more joy to your world than getting a handle on corporate budgeting. Not only will it help you operate more effectively, meet growth goals and keep up with ongoing market demands, it'll secure your spot on the nice list for all eternity. Worried it sounds too complicated? Luckily, Vena makes corporate budgeting as easy as pumpkin pie. You can create flexible budgets based on the size of your workshop using top-down or bottom-up budgeting while ensuring they align with your business goals, whether they're driver based or zero based. The best part? You'll recognize a familiar interface: Excel.
