BudgetPak logo - XLerant

Budgeting to Strategy in Higher Education – A Recorded Webinar

We ran a webinar last week that drew a lot of attention in higher education. If you work for a college (or if you’re planning on sending your children to college) you want to watch this. As one person attending the event commented afterward, “We’ve been struggling with financial issues since 2008, and this is…    Read More

Read More
Coffee and Calendar - XLerant

Someday is now… Somebody is you

Someday we’re going to make our budget process better… somebody should really do that. How often have you thought that? How often have you discussed that with the people you work with? Well… that some day is now, and that somebody is you. I know firsthand that leading an effort to redesign the planning process…    Read More

Read More
Community College - XLerant

10 Problems Colleges & Universities Have With Budgeting

The problems that colleges and universities face when it comes to budgeting are significant. Given all the economic challenges higher education faces today and the need to do more with less, budgeting is clearly mission critical. That makes addressing the problems associated with budgeting a top priority. One of my old bosses used to say…    Read More

Read More
CFO Lighbulb - XLerant

Meanwhile, CFOs Enjoy More Influence

CFO Research finds the financial crisis boosted the profile of finance chiefs. Struggling economy, having to do more with less, what’s not to like? The good news for Finance chiefs is that many believe their stature has been elevated during the economic downturn. That’s according to a recent survey by CFO Magazine and Expense Reduction…    Read More

Read More
Spreadsheet - XLerant

15 Things You Can’t Do in Excel for Budgeting: #1

#1 You can’t tell where everyone is in the process. The first thing you can’t do in Excel is tell where everybody is in the process. You know who’s submitted a spreadsheet to you and that’s about it. There’s nothing to give you visibility into the work in process. You don’t know who’s started and…    Read More

Read More
Broken Excel - XLerant

15 Things You Can’t Do in Excel for Budgeting: #2

#2- You can’t have executives electronically sign off on budgets underneath them. We’ve all been there. You’re sitting in a budget review meeting and an executive says, “That can’t be right, you don’t have the right budget.” It seems the higher up the executive is making that statement, the longer the silence that follows… I…    Read More

Read More
Raymond Panko - XLerant

Who is Raymond Panko… and why should you care?

Raymond Panko, a professor at the University of Hawaii, is the leading expert on spreadsheet errors. Who makes them, why they happen, what rate they’re seen in the average spreadsheet, you name it. He wrote a paper on the subject called What We Know About Spreadsheet Errors first published in the Journal of End User…    Read More

Read More