The Criticality of Delivering Real-Time Budgets and Forecasts

Delivering real-time budgets and forecasts to front-line managers and decision-makers has become critical in today's fast-paced business environment.

In the past, most companies were content to report their financial information 7 to 10 days after they closed their books each month. Today, however, waiting that long is like forecasting in the dark. Many problems can develop into crises before anyone recognizes them. Companies that produce reports quickly are acting on that information, while others at less efficient companies are still waiting for their numbers to arrive.

In this information-hungry corporate environment, having the most current information about your company's strengths and weaknesses as quickly as possible can gain you a competitive advantage. Consequently, there's never been a greater urgency to produce real-time information that can be acted on before opportunities disappear. Most companies are scrambling for ways to speed up their ability to collect and disseminate critical company data.

The time to forecast will be shorter than ever before. Planning, budgeting, and forecasting are long and frustrating processes in most companies. Traditional spreadsheets can be a nightmare of inconsistent formulas, mystery links, mismatched/unaligned fields, and so forth. Typical budgeting software can be confusing and requires considerable consulting and training.

This is where the rubber meets the road. Budget Maestro 5 is easily deployed in an organization in days, not months. Create your business model, develop your budgets and forecasts, and produce sophisticated reports on the fly... all of the functionality and robust reporting features are built-in and ready to go.

One reason for the demand of reporting urgency is the "virtual close," or the ability to close the books any time. This means that all business transactions have to be continuously posted. Unfortunately, most companies aren't organized enough to support closing the books more often than once a month.

Why is this important? The greatest advantage of the virtual close is capturing information for proactive decision-making strategies, plans, and forecasts.

Call it the real-time budgeting essential. Traditional budgeting and forecasting has a long history of fostering disconnects among various entities in a company. The main problem is that the budgets and forecasts are often too old by the time they are put into decision-makers' hands. Old information means forecasts are based on old numbers.

Effective planning requires real-time data. So, what can you do? Many companies are looking for real-time planning, budgeting, and forecasting systems and analytical software. These systems are designed to provide a precise snapshot of financial conditions at any time. It's about having the data you need to make the necessary critical decisions. Budget Maestro 5 streamlines the complex, time-consuming process of budgeting and forecasting by increasing the efficiency and reliability of data analysis.

But Budget Maestro 5 is more than a budgeting, planning, and financial reporting solution - it's a powerful management solution that integrates all the functionality of the large enterprise wide solutions that you expect, to deliver the most precise, valuable analysis of your resources and cash position.

Reports are only meaningful when they portray information they way you need to see it. Budget Maestro 5's powerful "drill down to transaction level" capability helps you slice, dice, and customize the information for specific uses, as well as see the supporting assumptions behind the data.

Right out-of-the box, Budget Maestro 5 dynamically builds your balance sheet, income statement and cash flow analysis on the fly. Budget Maestro's integrated double entry accounting supporting both accrual and cash methods provide the most precise analysis of your cash position. Changes made to any of your assumptions are immediately updated and reflected in a new set of financial statements and management reports.

Your front line managers are the best source for accurate information about the business. Now, with Budget Maestro 5, they can be your greatest assets in financial planning. Unlike traditional budgeting programs, like Excel, that offer a two-dimensional grid for data entry and minimal security, Budget Maestro's natural language interface, innovative data entry screens and windows-based interface guide users through the data entry, budgeting, forecasting and reporting process quickly and easily - without any specialized training in accounting and finance. The learning curve is short so your managers can be immediately productive in the budgeting process.

The best value, though, is that most robust financial reporting solutions can cost $50,000 or more. Budget Maestro 5 is the solution of choice, because it contains all the functionality of those higher priced solutions, it's easier to implement, and easier to use. At a mere $2,495 to $12,995 (depending on which edition is the right solution for your company), Budget Maestro 5 contains all the functionality of "the big boys" at a fraction of the price.

What this all boils down to is your bottom line. You can only be as effective as the information on which you rely. By implementing a real-time budgeting and forecasting solution like Budget Maestro 5, you can make those critical decisions necessary to stay competitive.