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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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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Lock and Key - XLerant

Why locking down spreadsheet templates doesn’t work

We have discussed in this blog a big concept – Explicit Budgets for projects or initiatives. But not every department really needs that degree of sophistication. Sometimes it’s the small things that can improve communication. Like allowing managers to easily add justifications and detail. For example, we have a client that has an Administrative Services…    Read More

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Rolling Wheels - XLerant

Rolling Forecast. Part 3 – Assessment of Rolling Forecast

In part one of this series we looked at the common problems that organizations have with the annual planning/ budgeting process. Recognizing of course that most companies do forecasting as well, we looked at the annual planning process as a proxy for the processes companies deploy year-round to develop financial projections. In part two of…    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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Ambiguous Problems - XLerant

Solving Ambiguous Problems – What Successful Companies Get That the Rest of Us Don’t

I’ve had the distinct pleasure of working with some of the best run companies over the years and I’ve come to appreciate what really separates them from “the merely good”. Some of what makes great companies so successful, like hiring great talent, is quite obvious. But in this blog I’d like to share one of…    Read More

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