You cannot ignore the importance of budgeting and forecasting software for tracking your financial progress and efficiently running your business operations, besides reducing the opportunity for potential human error. There is a huge risk of human error when budgets are formulated, which can drastically affect the budgeting process. However, with the right tool handy, you can reduce this risk and automatically import data from integrated accounting systems, such as the HR systems, enterprise resource planning solutions, and general ledger.
Need for Budgeting and Forecasting Software
Budgeting and forecasting are critically important for the financial success of your enterprise. When you combine both, you can avoid the risk of ignoring many expenses that are otherwise likely to get swept under the rug. When expenses go unnoticed, it can make it harder for you to seek further investment.
• Keep it real: A business budget and forecasting solution seamlessly connect and interacts with other programs. This helps provide consolidated data collection and strengthens consistency for data analysis. With a solution that combines budgeting and forecasting, it is easy to keep the software up to date and have an idea of where you stand financially.
• Automated: With a budgeting software tool, collaboration in the budget formulation is easier than ever. Manual collaboration is full of hassles when different individuals are in charge of specific areas of the budgetary process. The automatic rollup feature makes it completely painless to update your numbers quarterly or monthly. This means you no longer have to worry about inputting hours of data entry into your master sheet.
• Identify loopholes: Standardizing the budget approval process can help improve the organization by improving awareness of potential obstacles and providing deeper foresight in budget formation. Negligence and typos can adversely affect budgets. However, with the right system in place, users get automated reminders so they know when to input important information for budgetary analysis. This automated importing helps strengthen the consistency and completeness of data analysis.
• Facilitate comparisons: When you have all the data on budgeting and forecasting handy in one place, comparisons become easier than ever. You can easily compare budget and forecasting data and keep track of where you stand financially in contrast to your goals. With this consolidated data, you can make better decisions to accomplish your financial goals, keeping the larger picture in mind. By combining budgeting and forecasting, it is easier to update your monthly figures while keeping in mind your annual budget goals.
• Involve management in budgeting and forecasting: With a secure budgeting and forecasting software solution, management can get access to the actual numbers and therefore participate better in financial practices. When management participates in budgeting and forecasting, they can make better decisions. It will also ensure that all the financial responsibility does not fall on the shoulders of one person.
• Time saving: Since the entire process is automated, you no longer need to mess with resetting your forecasts, requiring a huge amount of time to balance the numbers and make comparisons. When you don’t need to spend a minute on mindless data entry tasks, you can save time and use it to focus on your core competency.
• Accuracy: With budgeting and forecasting software, you cannot get wrong with the numbers, as it greatly decrease the risk of human error. This means you can always keep your cost and expense tracking updated, requiring little effort on your part. Data accuracy means greater cost savings!
• Clear actionable steps: When your team has a well-crafted budget and forecasting tool handy, it is like an action plan to achieve expected revenue growth and accomplish profit goals.
Top Budgeting and Forecasting Software
Automated software solutions are the best tools to manage your budgeting and forecasting practices. Here are some of the leading tools that you may want to invest in:
1. Plan Guru – Make better budgeting and financial decisions with PlanGuru that gives you actionable insights into your financial data.
2. Budget Maestero – Looking to better manage your finances and performance? Get your hands on one of the leading budgeting and forecasting solutions on the market.
3. Deltek GCS– The budgeting and planning software makes it easier for you to manage finances, plan ahead, manage documents and resources efficiently, and create and customize reports.
4. BudgetGuide – The accounting, budgeting, and financial management tool comes with workflow management and analytics tools and allows a better collaborative environment. This helps reduce cost and time for budgeting and forecast.
5. Prophix –It is easy to access your budget anytime anywhere with Prophix, so all stakeholders can participate in the decision-making of finances and prepare better to meet future goals.
If you aren’t too sure which budgeting and forecasting software will work best for your business, ITQlick experts can guide you. We believe this kind of software is one of the best investments for your business that can start paying you to reach returns within a short period.