WP Planning Budgeting and Forecasting Superhero I

BUSINESS GUIDE
Planning, Budgeting and

Forecasting in the Cloud:
Graduating from Spreadsheets
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Planning, Budgeting and

Forecasting in the Cloud:
Graduating from Spreadsheets
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Table of Contents
1 2
Spreadsheet- The
Based Challenges of
Overview Planning: Spreadsheet-
Proceed With Based
Caution Processes
PAGE 2 PAGE 4 PAGE 5
3 4
Planning and Make Better

Budgeting in Decisions Faster
the Cloud
PAGE 6 PAGE 8
CHAPTER 1
Spreadsheet-Based Planning:
Proceed With Caution
When it comes to planning, budgeting and

forecasting, many financial planning and
When it comes to planning, budgeting
analysis (FP&A) teams continue to rely on the
and forecasting, spreadsheets fall
same old desktop tools and manual processes:
short when it comes to:
spreadsheets. While spreadsheets are easy
to use, they are not built to gather data from • Collaborative planning
across the organization, roll up departmental
plans, or do complex, collaborative planning • Management of information
and multi-dimensional modeling. Whether an • Scenario modeling
organization is experiencing fast development or
faced with economic uncertainty, more and more
FP&A professionals are discovering that manual
spreadsheet-based planning falls short in providing
the control, collaboration and visibility needed to aid
in providing strategic guidance for the company.

CHAPTER 2
The Challenges of
Spreadsheet-Based Processes
If you’re still using individual spreadsheets and Collaboration

manual processes for planning, it’s probably
Passing spreadsheets back and forth makes it
not because you think these are the best tools
all too easy for people to delete rows and cells
for the job. It’s more likely that it was the best
and break formulas and links. Not to mention the
solution at the time and you just have not had the
challenge of keeping track of the latest version.
chance to consider an alternative. But running a
This process of collaboration is completely offline
company involves collaboration, multi-departmental
and leads to inefficiencies, errors and limited
process like planning, budgeting, forecasting and
visibility into changes being made. Additionally,
reporting. That’s where using disconnected
the lack of an audit trail creates problems with
spreadsheets as a FP&A tool creates challenges
governance and investigating the source of
for organizations, including:
mistakes and inaccuracies.
Stale, Fragmented, Error-prone Data

Spending hours exporting operational data from
Modeling and What-if Analysis
your general ledger (GL), payroll, purchasing, or other With the limited flexibility to allow for multiple
systems and manually adding it in spreadsheets dimensions of data, what-if analysis is almost
is extremely time consuming and leaves room for impossible to do well in spreadsheets. Finance
data entry errors. Even after the data is collected and and business users can’t perform true multi-
put into a spreadsheet, it only provides a historical dimensional planning, incorporating dimensions
snapshot of the numbers at a single point in time. such as product, location, customer, expense,
So you’re always chasing after “the latest number” currency and time all at once. These disconnected
for anyone who needs to know the current position manual processes may support businesses with
against the plan, budget or forecast. slow cycle times, but they are no match for the
rapid changing business conditions.
Consolidation
The bottom line: You spend huge amounts of
Your team didn’t spend years getting accounting time, energy and resources fighting with a tool
degrees and MBAs to master the art of collecting that wasn’t designed to do what you need it to do.
spreadsheets from all the departments in the
company and consolidating them into a single
master plan. In addition, this time-consuming
process makes it difficult, if not impossible, to
quickly respond to changing business conditions.

CHAPTER 3
Planning and Budgeting in the Cloud
Organizations are increasingly turning from are built into the solution and processes are
desktop tools to a cloud-based solution to meet automated, reducing the need for human oversight
the planning, budgeting and forecasting demands and intervention. Workflows also ensure that the
of the business. In order to gain the visibility and progress of tasks such as reviews and approval
agility, businesses need a suite of planning and can be closely tracked. Everyone is entering data
budgeting tools based on centralized plans with consistently and using the same processes.
a seamless connection to corporate financial data,
providing a single version of the truth. With this Increased Collaboration
in place, planning, budgeting and forecasting
becomes much easier and faster, resulting in: A cloud-based planning and budgeting solution
makes data accessible in real time to anyone who
needs to see such information. All stakeholders
Greater Control are connected in a single environment, streamlining
With a cloud-based planning and budgeting solution, data collection. Accessibility boosts participation
all data is centralized. Integration with an ERP solution and accountability, making it easier for FP&A
ensures automated ongoing access to up-to-date to get meaningful input and engagement from
financial data. With reduced reliance on manual operational managers. And increased collaboration
data input and reconciliations, control is improved. promotes greater trust in the process across
Robust workflows that leverage best practices the business.

Improved Visibility
All budgeting, planning and forecasting data is Your Checklist for Planning
entered into one centralized, cloud-based tool, and Budgeting Tools
creating a single source of truth. Any changes
made to numbers in the system are automatically Implementing a cloud-based planning
reflected in reports and dashboards, so the current and budgeting solution can enable teams
business situation is always clear. Modeling to spend more time understanding and
based on multiple what-if scenarios can easily analyzing business trends and drivers of
be performed on any dimensions of data. This performance. Make sure the planning and
visibility gives organizations more confidence budgeting solution you are considering
in current performance and budget projections, includes these capabilities.
greatly improves planning capabilities, and drives
• Flexible ‘what-if’ modelling capabilities.
accountability on key performance targets across
Model different business outcomes
the company.
and evaluate different sets of forecast
assumptions by defining scenarios.
The bottom line: For organizations to make better
decisions, they need their planning, budgeting and • A powerful calculation engine which can
forecasting processes to be collaborative and less accommodate a wide range of business
resource intensive. Integrating plans, budgets and logic with fast in-memory aggregation
forecasts across individual functions and business and instant analysis.
units creates close links between strategy and
operations, enabling better and faster decisions • Built-in commentary and
to be made. annotation capabilities.
• Flexible workflow and plan

management capabilities.
• Robust reporting and ad hoc analysis

with formatting and charting support.
• Synchronization with an ERP system.
• Seamless integration with productivity

tools for ad-hoc analysis and reporting.

CHAPTER 4
Make Better Decisions Faster
A cloud-based planning and budgeting solutions Pre-built integration with NetSuite enables
is not just a win for the FP&A team. It delivers financial, payroll and headcount data to be used
fast, long-term benefits to the entire business. throughout the entire planning, budgeting and
With less time spent on manual consolidation, forecasting process.
troubleshooting, reporting and data loading,
finance staff can concentrate on analyzing “Using NetSuite Planning and Budgeting,
performance data, reforecasting frequently we now have more time for high-value
and making the right decisions to take the
business forward.
analysis, partnering and collaborating with
stakeholders across the business.”
NetSuite Planning and Budgeting facilitates
Aaron Hartwig, CFO, Edgewood Companies
both company-wide and departmental financial
planning within one collaborative scalable solution.

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BUSINESS GUIDE

Planning, Budgeting and

Planning, Budgeting and

© Oracle | Terms of Use and Privacy Page 2

Planning and Make Better

When it comes to planning, budgeting and

© Oracle | Terms of Use and Privacy Page 4

If you’re still using individual spreadsheets and Collaboration

Stale, Fragmented, Error-prone Data

© Oracle | Terms of Use and Privacy Page 5

Planning and Budgeting in the Cloud

© Oracle | Terms of Use and Privacy Page 6

• Flexible workflow and plan

• Robust reporting and ad hoc analysis

• Synchronization with an ERP system.

• Seamless integration with productivity

© Oracle | Terms of Use and Privacy Page 7

Make Better Decisions Faster

© Oracle | Terms of Use and Privacy Page 8

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