The 6 Personas of Budgeting that Will Destroy your ProcessAs we all know: not everyone is alike. There are many different personality types in the world. And there are also many different personality types in the budget process…not all of which are good for your budget process. We have identified six different types of budget user personas that can destroy your process and have… Read More |
Perfection Paralysis and Budgeting“Perfection Paralysis” is defined as fear of moving on a particular issue unless absolute perfection is achieved. A similar sentiment is expressed in the phrase: “Perfection is the enemy of the good”. In other words, people will sacrifice positive achievement and movement because it was not perfect. If you could get a threefold improvement in… Read More |
Excel in Budgeting – Friend or Foe?Most organizations still use Microsoft Excel as their budget preparation tool. The reason for this is that the general ledger or ERP providers don’t focus on, or even understand, the budget process or budget workflow and do not think about this from the perspective of the average user or institution. So, financial people took matters… Read More |
Seducing Users to Improve the Budget ProcessIn today’s world of software, people are used to being seduced by personal applications that make things simplistic…like Google or Facebook. They now expect that business software will follow suit. Wikipedia defines seduction as the process of deliberately enticing, corrupting, persuading, or inducing a person to engage in behavior. The word seduction stems from Latin… Read More |
Reverse Engineering the Budget ProcessReverse engineering (the process of starting with a product and taking it apart to see how it works) has been used in product development for decades. Many organizations use this as a best practice in copying some key product or concept from a competitor. When applied to a process, it is the practice of starting… Read More |
“Actual Results May Vary” – The Art of ForecastingMost organizations budget. They may not budget well, but at least they try. The budget process is the funding of the next 12 months of the strategic plan. It sets financial targets for revenue and expenses and it (hopefully) lays out how each area of the company will support the company strategy. But is it… Read More |
What Motivates Organizations to Abandon Excel Budgeting?Budgeting, planning and forecasting are “mission critical” applications in most organizations today. A poor budgeting process is the number one reason why organizations miss their numbers. Implementing a process that appeals both to the financial organization, officially responsible for the budget, and the department heads, who own the results is hugely difficult. Poor capabilities from… Read More |
15 Things You Can’t Do in Excel Budgeting (But Should)Budgeting is “mission critical” in organizations today. Yet many organizations still use Excel for budget preparation. Many organizations have turned to Excel because their ERP systems had weak budgeting capabilities. ERP systems were designed especially for financial people, with strict controls and transaction processing. But successful budgeting involves non-financial department heads, requires flexibility, and account… Read More |
Why Cloud-based (SaaS) Budgeting is Ideal for Any OrganizationIf there are two things that many organizations have in common, it is that they all have limited financial and IT resources – and they are all trying to do more with less, while simultaneously keeping costs down. There isn’t a lot of excess cash for large software or hardware purchases. Yet despite this lack… Read More |
XLerant Heads to CFO Dimensions Event in New York CityThe XLerant team is hitting the road next week (though not straying too far from our CT offices!) for the CFO Dimensions event in the heart of NYC. We’ll have the usual booth presence so all the attendees can come meet and greet with us. But even more exciting is that our CEO, Ted Dacko,… Read More |
