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 |
Unique Challenges of Budgeting in Not for ProfitBudgets matter in the not-for-profit world to a degree I rarely see in the for-profit world. In the for-profit world, the budget is just a snapshot in time. It can be forgotten about the first time the company produces a reforecast (which, incidentally, can be forgotten with the second reforecast). It’s not that for-profit organizations… Read More |
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 |
What a National Survey on Budgeting RevealsXLerant recently completed a survey on budgeting and I wanted to share some of the highlights with you here. Budgeting is mission critical. You probably already knew that, but isn’t it comforting to know that a majority (over 90%) of your peers agree with you? Budgeting is getting more scrutiny than in the past. Given… Read More |
Solving Ambiguous Problems – What Successful Companies Get That the Rest of Us Don’tI’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 |
Meanwhile, CFOs Enjoy More InfluenceCFO 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 |
Business Officer Magazine: Self Service Budgeting at DrewI was honored to work with Howard Buxbaum on “Self Service Budgeting at Drew University” which appears in the November 2011 issue of Business Officer Magazine. Here’s an excerpt: In a meeting with Drew University’s president, we not only reviewed the points outlined in this article but also talked about the higher-level issue of accountability,… Read More |
Who is Raymond Panko… and why should you care?Raymond Panko, a professor at the University of Hawaii, is the leading expert on spreadsheet errors. Who makes them, why they happen, what rate they’re seen in the average spreadsheet, you name it. He wrote a paper on the subject called What We Know About Spreadsheet Errors first published in the Journal of End User… Read More |
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 |
The Missing Link: Budgeting and ExecutionThere are two primary purposes of budgeting. The one most people think of first is to put a cap spending. But that’s only one reason why organizations (and people) budget. The other reason why organizations budget is to ensure what’s important gets done. And let’s face it, just because something is important doesn’t mean it… Read More |