Perhaps budgeting, forecasting, and other planning processes are not anyone’s favorite tasks because of how tedious manual Excel or spreadsheet planning can be for budget managers. Excel might be globally popular and trustworthy, but the spreadsheet application is below par for companies of a healthy size. At GraVoc, we have helped Microsoft Dynamics AX users who are shopping around for the best independent software vendor (ISV) budgeting software to upgrade and expedite their planning tasks. Some third party solutions of today streamline and improve budgeting and forecasting by building collaboration and security into the core of the tool – and the process. Budgeting and forecasting are naturally collaborative because of the importance for all departments to be involved in living within the company’s financial means to progress successfully and competitively.
Budgeting usually involves more than one person, sometimes dozens or even 100+ people working together to craft a plan with historical financials and projections. Most finance departments might gravitate toward Excel, but the program can be logistically challenging and not very secure when it comes to collaborating across the organization. Still, a lot of corporations depend on Excel – and/or perhaps Microsoft Forecaster, despite its age – so an investment in an ISV product might feel excessive. This article will focus on the benefits of today’s budgeting solutions, so that you can start shopping for the best solution for improving your planning processes with Dynamics AX.
An investment in a budgeting tool has become more common lately due to the accessibility and ownership that managers can distribute to budget contributors, which is a consumer-driven upgrade to planning processes. And good news: there are budgeting solutions that are database-driven Excel add-ins, which means you can work with the familiar form and function of Excel, only accelerated. There’s a ribbon added to the toolbar, which eliminates the need to manually link together spreadsheets for a comprehensive budget. Accounting logic is also native to some third party budgeting tools, so the solution is more business user friendly, especially in terms of automation and templates you can reuse.
Today’s ISV planning software is responding to consumer demands for more secure, more logical, more collaborative processes. GraVoc is happy to report that budget managers can distribute true ownership of budgets to department heads, so they are helping to shape the budgets that they have to manage throughout the year. And better yet – all without long, back-and-forth e-mail threads, large attachments, or manual spreadsheet linking. Then, the budget manager can easily put together an organization-wide financial plan born out of smart collaboration. If it sounds too good to be true, we understand. But it’s not, and you’re likely to have a quick return on your investment.
To continue learning more about budgeting solutions for Microsoft Dynamics AX, read the rest of this article.
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