Let's Talk finance

It seems spreadsheets are the route of all  evil if you believe everything you read today. Much like a difficult toddler they make mistakes, often get unruly and difficult to handle and don't share easily. 

Nevertheless we in finance love them. Like offspring we've nurtured the spreadsheet as one of our own. There are times we'd happily scream at them but, like our offspring they have our own stamp running through them. They are tricky to adopt from others, as there are lots of hidden codes to understand and learn so they behave well, and you can build a relationship with them.

So how can we cling to spreadsheets and make them work when all around us are heralding that it's time to let go and move on?

I spent a day with our Delivery manager last week, developing the second phase of our project management system as we recognised we need to keep improving our systems and processes. It got me thinking about the whole continuous improvement conundrum. Let’s face it, change is hard and getting users to change even harder, so it’s no wonder we put off projects which need the mobilising of others.

There are specific challenges which charities and not for profit (NFP's) face when it comes to planning and reporting. 

We've worked with enough charity organisations to know that planning by project, the ability to trace multiple funding sources as well as the burden of regulatory and compliance reporting, means charities are struggling with old school tools like Excel, which saps their already limited resources.  

We share a new way forward for organisations which need a different way to plan, budget and report. 

According to a survey commissioned by Blackline more than 1,100 C-level executives and finance professionals:  

71% of C-level executives completely trust the accuracy of their financial data. However, only 38% of finance professionals — the people preparing the statements and reports — share that opinion.

There's is clearly a mismatch between the level of accuracy C suite perceives in the reports they read against that of finance. So we ask does this mean Finance have become expectant of error. Or are there other issues at play?

There are some common CFO 'Types' defined by McKinsey, which have been in use for a while now.  The reality is that the role has changed fundamentally, driven by business priorities and speed of change. So we've taken a fresh look at discovering what type of CFO you are, not just in terms of your priorities but how you make decisions, priority setting, innovation adoption and management style. 

For as long as most of us in Finance can remember, every year each company goes through its annual Budget cycle. Its as regular as clockwork, its ingrained in all of us to do it. But have you ever stopped, taken a step back, and asked why we do it this way?

what are cloud business planning solutions? 

You may know that your forecasting solution is falling short but what are the options when it comes to improving your planning processes? Here is a brief guide to what financial planning solutions can do and which pain points they can solve.  

Formulate have acquired Sereviso Adaptive practice to become the largest Adaptive Insights partner in Europe. With over 10 dedicated multilingual Adaptive consultants, able to reach all major European cities,  we can better serve our 80+ customers and prospects. Formulate now have the right people, infrastructure and experience to drive growth right across Europe and beyond.  

The CFO entering a new role is faced with a host of challenges, it can be a roller coaster of learning. So it can be tough to work out what to tackle first and how to work out what makes it into your plan for year one. 

We help you to work out what make the biggest impact on how well you perform in your new role, and where to focus your efforts to get the biggest returns, in this 90 day plan. 

Plan to growth

Why wait to plan better? Learn from the experts and invest in business planning tools which will support and grow with the business. Read the story of Karen Bach, who built a planning solution for KRM22 a fast growth company with big ambitions.