15 Things You Can’t Do in Excel for Budgeting (but should)Excel is an amazingly great application that has probably delivered more value than just about any other business software in the past 20 years. But as a platform for budgeting… well, it has some serious limitations. Like wouldn’t it be nice to be able to spread budgets based on last year’s actual spending pattern? That… Read More |
The Boys from BrazilLast week was an interesting week for me. I met with a team of 13 sales professionals from Latin America, all from a global ERP vendor. They came to Miami, Florida from Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Mexico (and despite the title of this blog, half the attendees were women). They came because… Read More |
What’s the top priority of CFOs today?What’s the top priority of CFOs today? According to the Hackett Group, it is “Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the annual budgeting process.” A remarkable 84% of CFOs surveyed by this leading consulting firm said this was a priority. An area I think is related to improving the efficiency of the annual budget process… Read More |
We’re #1There are unpleasant surprises (a parking ticket on your windshield, for example) and then there are pleasant surprises. Well, XLerant received a very pleasant surprise recently being named the #1 Pick for Budgeting Software by Accounting-Payroll Software. Goodness knows there are a lot of alternatives out there, but BudgetPak is the only budgeting application that… Read More |
The 8 Killers of Budgeting (and what to do about them)When I was a Manager of Financial Planning & Analysis for Pepsi in New York we experienced some challenges with our planning process. Doesn’t everybody? I thought these struggles were localized, so when I took a two year assignment with Pepsi in Europe, I thought I’d see a different set of issues. I didn’t. They… Read More |
Is Budgeting Mission Critical?Is budgeting mission critical, or is it a nice to have… or simply a necessary evil? Your view probably depends on what your current budget process is like, and whether or not it produces value. If, for example, you spend most of your time fixing broken links in spreadsheets so you can roll the numbers… Read More |
My day at EACUBOI had the pleasure of participating in the annual EACUBO workshop at the end of March. Hands down, it was one of the best events I’ve ever attended. For those of you who do not know EACUBO, the acronym stands for the Eastern Association of College & University Business Officers, and it is a regional… Read More |
Naked Budgeting(The Streaker of ’74 behind Oscar presenter David Niven) For those of you who are squeamish, I apologize for the Streaker of ’74. He won’t show up again in this post, but I have to get your attention somehow. Now on to more serious matters… When it comes to budgeting, most organizations are not that… Read More |
Just how fast is the world changing?Every once in a while I’m reminded of fast the world is changing, and at the same time small it’s getting (truly we live in a global village). Our planning processes are supposed to be informed by these changes and keep pace with them. A colleague of mine sent me a link to a short… Read More |
Is Your Budget Process Fair?I realize that the question isn’t one you stop and think about during the heat of the budget battle. There are templates to be created, links that need to be validated, formulas to be edited. And that’s just preparation! All of that work represents just a fraction of the time spent developing, reviewing and reworking… Read More |
