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

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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

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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

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Broken Processes - XLerant

If not me, who? If not now, when?

There are reasons why we stay stuck with a bad process. There are other priorities. Resources are scarce. There’s no time. The dog ate my homework. When you interview CFOs that have successfully risen through the ranks… who competed with others for coveted promotions and won… you find they have three things in common. First,…    Read More

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Businessman on Tightrope - XLerant

Budgeting: A Career Maker… A Career Breaker?

The reason why managing the budget process is a high wire act should be obvious. 1) Every corner of the organization is involved or impacted by the process in some way. 2) The process impacts people where it hurts – their wallets. 3) The most senior ranks of the organization are engaged in the process,…    Read More

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Broken Excel - XLerant

Why budgets are not Excel-ing

Excel is the #1 financial modeling tool on the planet. And unless you look outside of Microsoft Office, it’s the obvious choice for budgeting. That’s the reason why 80% of all organizations continue to use Excel for budgeting. But here are some common complaints heard every day: The process takes too long The process doesn’t…    Read More

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Brazil - XLerant

The Boys from Brazil

Last 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

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Graphs and Charts - XLerant

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

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#1 - XLerant

We’re #1

There 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

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