How Planning Maestro helps you

Change management made easy

Make any kind of business change with no reprogramming. With Planning Maestro’s built-in logic, it’s as simple as changing the numbers. Instantly create unlimited versions of the budget, each with its own financial model. Quickly test the impact of different scenarios and explore the financial consequences of alternative business growth and funding strategies.

Test multiple “What if?” scenarios

Easily test multiple assumptions and predict their impact on the financial statements with Planning Maestro’s driver-based automation. Test how sensitive a plan is to a specific variable. Built-in compliance and automated workflows ensure all inputs are processed according to your company’s unique structure.

Secure, collaborative planning

Modern FP&A involves stakeholders across the organization. Planning Maestro’s role-based access allows stakeholders to contribute to the budget, accessing only the data and functions relevant to them. Built-in safeguards help ensure the financial integrity of entered data.

Improve financial visibility

Our modern financial planning software provides a direct line of sight into the health of your business, enabling you to identify and react to trends immediately. Instantly compare actuals to plan to keep a close tab on performance. Drill down to find the story behind the numbers.

Seamless data connectivity

Automate the secure exchange of transaction data from GL, ERP, CRM, and other data sources. Enable ongoing actuals vs. budget comparisons and accurate forecasts, while eliminating the potential for data entry errors and duplicated information.

The FP&A Buyer’s Guide

For many organizations, Excel is deeply embedded in the planning and budgeting process. Convincing your company to spend money on new software when there is, essentially, free software that is doing the job might be a challenge. Learn how to build a solid business case for your financial software needs.

Frequently Asked Questions

You may have heard the saying, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Scenario planning allows your business to make flexible long-term plans to understand how each decision, like acquisitions or hiring new employees, will affect your financials and long-term trajectory.

Updating numbers is easy enough in any budget. It is when you start modifying the structure of the model that things get ugly. Just adding an account can cause the plan and budget to fall apart. Scenario planning analysis with Planning Maestro’s unique built-in business logic and automation means you can create unlimited scenarios using different models and test the consequences of each, without affecting the current budget or plan.

With scenario planning functionality, you can test multiple assumptions and predict their impact on the financial statements. Know with increased certainty how sensitive your plan and forecasts are to specific variables, such as sales or insurance rates, as well as the impact on your financial position and cash flow.

Financial forecasting provides insights regarding your company’s revenue and expenses and how they are changing over time and into the future. They are constructed based on assumptions that look much like today. Scenario planning involves different possible futures over a short or long term, as well as predicting how your company will respond and react. Scenario planning is based on unknown risks and uncertainty.

Now that you are convinced of the importance of scenario planning, you’re probably wondering how to get started. A few steps to consider:

  • Look for triggers: If you want to improve your scenario forecasting, start by brainstorming business factors that can impact your bottom line. These include customer desires and expectations, supply chain issues, cost variables, and capital availability. For best results, consider a wide range of factors, from the common to the less expected.
  • Check your data: Your scenario planning is only as accurate as the quality of your data. If you want to ensure your forecasts are based in reality, it’s crucial to gather up-to-date, reliable information from multiple sources. The most agile leaders collect a wide range of information from management accounts, market research, government sites, press accounts, and more.
  • Build an adaptable strategy: Of course, identifying scenarios is only the beginning. Your ultimate goal is to create detailed, agile strategies that you can adapt to whatever life brings your way. When building your strategies, aim to adjust current policies and procedures based on your findings. If you start changing policies, be sure to monitor the effects in real time so your team can continue making changes. When done correctly, these strategies will act as insurance policies so you aren’t caught by surprise in the event of either negative outcomes or positive opportunities for your business.