Part 4 – Annual Budgets Don’t Work: Stay On Track with Year-Round PlanningMonths get spent building a detailed budget based on assumptions about the year ahead. Department heads make their best guesses about membership trends, program attendance, event bookings, maintenance needs, and staffing requirements. The finance team consolidates everything. The board approves the final numbers. The annual budget is finally complete. All of your numbers are approved… Read More |
Part 3 – Making the Switch: How to Choose Budgeting Software That Actually Fits Your OrganizationThe decision is made. Excel isn’t cutting it anymore. The organization needs better budgeting tools. Now comes the scary part: actually making the change. Moving away from Excel sounds risky. Years of data live in those spreadsheets. Teams know how everything works. Finance heads are in love with the budgeting spreadsheet they created. Change is… Read More |
PART 2 – What Purpose-Built Budgeting Software Actually Does (And Why Your Peers Are Making the Switch)Finance teams stuck in Excel hell often wonder: what’s on the other side? Is the grass really greener, or is it just a different shade of spreadsheet chaos? Teams making the switch to purpose-built budgeting software have a clear answer. And the results speak for themselves. Why Smart Organizations Are Moving Beyond Excel The organizations… Read More |
PART 1 – The Hidden Cost of Excel: When Your Budgeting Process Becomes the ProblemFinance teams have been using Excel for budgeting since forever. It’s comfortable. The formulas are familiar. Templates are saved and ready to go. But somewhere along the way, something changed. The budget process that used to take a few weeks now drags into months. Finance teams spend more time hunting down the latest version of… Read More |
3 Keys to Effective Scenario Modeling in ClubsA budget is a living document that is analyzed and adjusted on an ongoing basis to account for changes in business priorities, performance differences, or changing economic conditions. Especially prior to submitting your budget to the board for approval, it is important to consider and analyze potential scenarios that could impact your budget and ongoing… Read More |
Frustrated with your budgeting process? Join the Club.Frustrated with your budgeting process? Join the Club. Exhausted with trying to figure out an inherited budget workbook built in Excel? Tired of creating spreadsheets, distributing them, collecting them, and consolidating them? Fed up with broken formulas and errors? Weary of fighting with your end users who hate Excel and don’t understand it? Worn-out from… Read More |
Budget Employee Benefits with Pinpoint AccuracyRunning a country club comes with its own unique challenges, and budgeting is definitely one of them. Unlike large corporations, where broad estimates can work, country clubs need to watch every dollar closely. That’s where BudgetPak by XLerant shines. This software solution helps clubs manage employee benefits with pinpoint accuracy, allowing them to assign specific… Read More |
The Headcount Headache: Budgeting for Seasonal Staff in Clubs (with BudgetPak as Your Cure)Ah, the private club scene. A haven of fantastic activity, fine dining, and… complex HR challenges. For club managers, juggling staff needs throughout the year can feel like a high-wire act. Unlike traditional businesses, private clubs face unique hurdles in headcount and salary planning, particularly when it comes to seasonal staff. The Planning Predicament: Let’s… Read More |
Budgeting: Critical Part of the Strategic Planning ProcessRather than view budgeting as an annual exercise, CFOs should fully integrate it into the strategic planning process. Doing so will help “close the loop” between planning and execution, as well increase engagement, ownership and even productivity of your staff. Here are 5 benefits that will be gained by incorporating budgeting into the strategic plan,… Read More |
Why Collaborative Budgeting is important during WFH/hybrid workWhether you refer to it as “decentralized”, “distributed”, or “collaborative”, engaging multiple participants in the budgeting process can be a challenge, especially during today’s WFH/hybrid environment. Department heads are often not experienced in mainstream business practices like budgeting, forecasting and management reporting. Yet, engaging these individuals and gaining their expertise and insight during the budgeting… Read More |
