Budgeting is such an important business task, but in our experience at Martin & Associates, it is also one of the most dreaded processes for most professionals.  We would posit that it likely has to do with the inadequate, older, and oftentimes, too simple planning tools budget managers are utilizing for budgeting and forecasting.  If your company is a healthy size, you probably cannot rely on Excel to manage organizational financial figures with manually built budgets or forecasts because of how tedious they can be, all the while too simple to ensure you are meeting your goals.  If you are reading this blog article, you are probably at least a little interested in upgrading to an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) planning software that will integrate with the Intacct accounting system, while streamlining and accelerating your budgeting processes.  Modern planning solutions are able to elevate security without leaving out collaboration as a key aspect of budgeting and forecasting.  Managing finances in order to live within the company’s means translates to staying competitive in the marketplace.

Planning for the fiscal year of an entire organization requires multiple players coming together with actuals and projections for costs and revenue.  Excel has been internationally embraced by most finance teams, starting in college at least, but the manual linking of spreadsheets can be tedious – and that’s putting it nicely.  Most companies are still relying on Excel, so investing in a third party solution could seem excessive, on top of the Excel licenses.  In this article, we will discuss the premier features and functionalities to consider when looking at ISV budgeting and forecasting tools to upgrade your Intacct planning processes.

Third party manufacturers have become increasingly more popular in the marketplace because they have listened to consumer demands for business user friendly, powerful, and collaborative solutions.  Excel add-in interfaces are arguably front runners because they combine the flexibility and familiarity of the popular spreadsheet application with needed modern power in a toolbar ribbon, which enables users to avoid manually building separate spreadsheets that you have to piece together.  The most attractive of today’s third party products build in accounting logical, process automation, and reusable templates, so that planning processes are more manageable for business end users.

At Martin & associates, we would understand if you were concerned about security and budgeting process logistics if you are going to invest your time, money, and energy into a new tool.  Customizable distribution of access rights and password protection are just a couple security features that pair collaboration with security in a way that gives supervisors ownership over the financial plans that they have to manage, while avoiding e-mail threads that go back and forth in sometimes lengthy discussions with attached spreadsheets.  With this secure collaboration at the forefront, the budget manager can easily facilitate an inclusive and all-encompassing planning process.  And despite what you might think, it is not too good to be true.  Just take a look at the potential return on your investment.

To continue learning more about budgeting and forecasting for Intacct, read the rest of this article here.