Let's Talk finance

Budget season brings weeks of spreadsheet hell for finance teams and functional managers. Laborious hours spent filling in the numbers, reconciling the figures,as well as all the negotiating for a bigger slice of the pie. It is a process that can cause friction between divisions and creates an enormous amount of work for finance chasing, compiling, linking, reconciling and defending. All work which creates no forward strategic outcome.

Formulate are pleased to announce it's new series of Autumn and Winter 2019 'Let's Talk Finance' lunches in London, Manchester and Birmingham. 

Our exclusive lunch tables are for senior finance professionals to eat, chat and network.

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?

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. 

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.  

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. 

Reporting has always been a bug bear for finance. In a company, different departments, divisions, and stakeholders all need a feed of information and in different formats. Reporting has often run from an ERP with restrictive processes flexibility.

As data and communication is the glue which ensures everyone in an organisation as well as external parties need to measure performance, results, aims and understand the direction and plan of the business. It is important that you have confidence in your reporting tools.