Is Your Company in "Spreadsheet Hell"?

Let's take a quick examination of how we currently do financial planning with Microsoft Excel and identify if our corporation has outgrown the spreadsheet steadfast for your accounting, planning and budgeting forecasts.

Questions to ask ourselves:

  1. Is there version control issues?  Multiple users are making changes at the same time and there is information loss.
  2. Are there data inconsistency issues?  Multiple spreadsheets are used to capture data and inaccuracies and discrepancies arise in reporting and analysis.
  3. Are your spreadsheets too complex?  Only one or two people in the office understand the spreadsheets with numerous sheets, formulas and macros making them difficult to maintain.
  4. Collaborating with teammates is a coordination headache? Spreadsheets are stored locally and not shared consistently, emailed to team members or siloed off.
  5. Security issues?  Spreadsheet is emailed to people who should not have access to the information or shared in the wrong publicly accessible folder.

If these scenarios sound familiar you are in "Spreadsheet Hell"!

What is NetSuite Planning and Budgeting?

NetSuite Planning and Budgeting (NSPB) provides data entry and formula maintenance for strategic analysis activities that have a great impact on the company's financials.  NSPB can automate otherwise labor intensive planning and budgeting activities and processes.  Finance teams can then quickly produce accurate budgets and forecasts, what-if scenarios and generate reports.  Spending less time on manually gathering and consolidating data, data loading and trouble shooting.

NSPB Dashboard

Control

Seamless data integration with NetSuite Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) ensures that data is up to date with ongoing operational and fincancial data. Reducing the reliance on manual reconciliations and manual data input.  While maintaining flexibility for adjustments using NetSuite's SmartView Excel add on.

Collaboration

The finance and accounting department all connected to a single environment, streamlining data collection, data accuracy and data timeliness.  Accessibility increases participation and accountability.  Making it easier to collaborate with operational managers and getting meaningful input and engagement for finance and accounting departments.

Security

NetSuite Planning and Budgeting Cloud have security features that allow group and individual user access roles.  

Visibility

Having a "single source of truth" in a single, centralized location with agreed upon version of information allows company wide visibility. The current business situation is always clear with data changes in the system and reflected in reports and dashboards.

Source: TechValidate

NetSuite Planning and Budgeting Features:

  • Budgeting and Forecasting - Automate tedious tasks across the company.
  • Scenario Planning and Modeling - Model complex calculations projected revenue, operating expenditures, capital expenditures, headcount costs, cash flow and sales.  Control formulas across the company with no regular updates or monthly maintenance.
  • Revenue Planning - Continuously monitor actual performance against objectives and track the resulting impact on cash flows and balance sheets.
  • Operational Expense - Hierarchical planning process that encompasses both corporate finance and lines of business.
  • Workforce Planning - Align the priorities and needs of the corporation by simplify workforce planning and related efforts.  Centralized head count, salary and compensation planning ensures departments have the tools to meet organizational objectives.
  • Trended Financial Statements - Fully integrated financial statements income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statements.
  • Data Synchronization - Synchronize corporate ERP data for up-to-date financial and operational data, account structures and dimensions that are automatically reflected in plans, budgets and forecasts.
  • Dashboards - NetSuite's drag-and-drop report builder puts powerful, yet easy-to-use, web-based reporting into the hands of finance and business managers.
  • Microsoft Office Integration - Smart View for Office enables the integration of NetSuite Planning and Budgeting with Microsoft Office tools. Common planning actions, such as spreading and allocation, are available for data grids rendered within Excel.
  • Predictive Planning - Continually monitor and analyze plans, forecasts, and variances to highlight any trends, anomalies, biases, hidden correlations. Allowing large amounts of data to be quickly analyzed.

Want to Learn More?

If you would like a free consultation please contact Gerard at Redhill Business Analytics via email or the contact form below.