Continuous Planning

Continuous Planning for Business Advantage: Rob Kugel of Ventana Research on the Being Planful Podcast

On the Being Planful podcast, I was recently joined by Robert D. Kugel, SVP & Research Director of Office of Finance and Business Research at Ventana Research. Rob has over three decades of experience and expertise in finance and related business processes, and a favorite topic of his is integrated business planning. In fact, Rob […]

Continuous Planning

Make Cash Management a Competitive Advantage

Everyone in Finance has been beating the drum of cash preservation since the pandemic first hit the news cycles. Now, many months later, if cash remains king, uncertainty is surely queen. Getting a handle on your cash flow is the job of FP&A, but with so much continuing change, the business is relying on you […]

Continuous Planning

What Every Human Resources and FP&A Department Can Do To Strengthen Their Working Relationship

Melissa Dreuth, Senior Vice President of People and Culture at Planful, talks to her counterparts in the Finance team every day… and looks forward to it.  “Human Resources – also referred to as People Operations – tends to either love or hate the Finance department. Personally, I absolutely love my Finance colleagues.” And while the […]

Continuous Planning

How Continuous Planning Helps FP&A Break Through Organizational Silos

Imagine if every conversation between Finance and the rest of the company started at a strategic, high level… because the non-Finance teams are already literate with the financial data and thinking relevant to their function. Instead of the non-FP&A units getting frustrated that their asks are getting shut down because the financial numbers aren’t supportive, […]

Continuous Planning

Continuous Planning – Structure for Finance, Flexibility for the Business

Planning is an essential part of every business. Marketing managers plan how lead generation campaigns fit within their broader pipeline-building goals. Sales managers plan for territory performance, sales rep quotas, and productivity capacities to help meet quarterly revenue targets. The director of operations plans supply, production, and logistics to ensure customer demands are met. And […]

Continuous Planning

A Platform for Every Dynamic Plan Your Business Needs

You know what keeps finance up at night? Errors, inaccuracies, variables, unknowns, noncompliance — anything that falls outside of their highly-organized financial and regulatory requirements. That’s because finance is fundamentally structured. Financial planning is built around general ledgers, accounts, journal entries, cost centers, debits and credits. And finance uses those constructs to deliver even more […]

Continuous Planning

How to Give Finance the Structure it Needs While Maintaining Business Agility

Business and financial planning has historically been a static, periodic process. Yet the business environment is one of constant change. It doesn’t sound like the best way to run your organization nor have complete confidence in your plan, right? With change being a constant influence on your business, and with planning season in full swing, […]

Continuous Planning

Business is Continuous, So Why Isn’t Planning?

The organizational planning process is rarely something that people look forward to. As we inch closer to the end of one year and the beginning of the next, the specter of yet another long, tedious, and quick-to-be-outdated planning process is upon us all.  But think for a moment about your business. It changes daily. What […]

Continuous Planning

As Businesses Continue to Move Faster, Finance is Running Out of Time

Is it hyperbole to say the business world is more dynamic than ever? Everything happens so quickly, even when compared with the recent past. A new brand can be launched from a laptop today and, with some high-profile social mentions, be a million-dollar business tomorrow. And, just as fast, a unicorn darling can be preparing […]

Continuous Planning

Are You Prepared for Planning Season?

If your reaction to reading “planning season” in the title was, “Ugh!”, then it’s time to rethink your approach. We’re in an economy that moves quickly. Advancements in production, logistics, technology, and other areas have translated into faster times to market…for both you and your competitors. Companies can be run from a single laptop, manufacturing […]

Continuous Planning

Dear Mr. EPM, Why is Budgeting So Complex?

In the essence of a “Dear Abbey” advice column, we at Planful are trying to tackle your biggest financial process questions. This series of blog posts called, Dear Mr. EPM will look to answer questions on some of your challenges. Have a question for us – email us at info@hostanalytics.com.

Continuous Planning

Be a Finance Innovator by Making Everyone Count

Technology has, in just the past few years, dramatically altered the way we do nearly everything, from sharing selfies to collaborating with coworkers.  How it has affected the finance profession is no different.

Continuous Planning

The Perils of Using Spreadsheets for Budgeting, Planning and Forecasting

Continuous Planning

Planning Season is Coming – Time to Move Planning to the Cloud?

Well, summer is coming to an end soon – vacations are winding down, kids will be going back to school, and many of you in Finance will be starting the planning and budgeting process for 2018.

Continuous Planning

What is Driver-Based Planning?

Driver-based planning is an approach to planning and management that is focused on identifying an organization's key business and value drivers and then creating business plans and budgets based on these key drivers.

Continuous Planning

How to Transform Budgeting for 2018 With Continuous Planning – Webinar Recap

As the final days of summer tick away, many organizations are beginning to think about their planning and budgeting for the 2018 fiscal year. What's your approach?

Continuous Planning

Continuous Planning – Transform Your Approach to Budgeting for 2018

It’s that time of year.  Come September, many organizations will begin the budgeting and planning process for 2018.  What’s your approach going to be?

Continuous Planning

4 Steps to Reducing the Pain of Planning and Forecasting [Webinar Recap]

While summertime is here in the Northern Hemisphere, budgeting season is just around the corner.  That’s right, in a few months you’ll be starting the planning process for 2018.

Continuous Planning

What’s All the Buzz About Continuous Planning?

There’s been an increasing amount of buzz in the market around the concept of “continuous planning.”  While the concept has been around for a while, why is this getting so much attention now?  What does it mean?  And how continuous is continuous?

Continuous Planning

Stop Abusing Excel for Workforce and CAPEX Planning

Two of the critical planning processes that feed into the operating expense planning process are workforce planning and capital expense (CAPEX) planning.

Continuous Planning

How to Align Financial and Operational Planning

When it comes to financial budgeting and planning, the days of top-down budgeting, driven by Finance seem to be waning.

Continuous Planning

Rolling Forecasts – Transform Planning and Increase Business Agility

While the annual budgeting process is an important step in setting goals and defining resource allocations for the coming year, the pace of change in today's business world typically makes the annual budget obsolete after a few months.

Continuous Planning

Budgeting, Planning, and Forecasting in 2017 & Beyond

Budgeting, planning, and forecasting are critical steps in the enterprise performance management (EPM) process.

Continuous Planning

How EPM Software Unifies Planning, Modeling, Reporting and Analytics

Most finance professionals know that budgeting, planning, modeling, reporting, and analytics are all related business processes.

Continuous Planning

What Are the Advantages of Moving FP&A to the Cloud?

Budgeting, planning, and forecasting in today’s volatile business environment is a challenging task.  Trying to manage these processes using spreadsheets in a dynamic and growing enterprise makes the process even harder.

Continuous Planning

How the Revised Revenue Recognition Rules Impact Budgeting & Planning

In many organizations, the accounting and finance departments are still trying to process the news about upcoming changes to the revenue recognition guidelines announced by the FASB and IASB earlier this year.

Continuous Planning

Strategies for Making Budgeting and Planning More Effective

Today, planning a corporate budget is more challenging than ever, as there is greater pressure on business than ever before.

Continuous Planning

5 Easy Steps to Switching Planning Tools

It’s that time of year – when leaves turn their fall colors, kids are back in school, and of course, budgeting season ramps up.

Continuous Planning

What’s New in Financial Planning and Analysis a.k.a. FP&A?

From what I'm hearing, Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) is becoming the "cool" department within Finance that many professionals seek to work in.  Why?  Probably because FP&A is less focused on the day to day transaction processing and more focused on forward-looking analysis and strategy for the business.

Continuous Planning

3 Steps to Improving Agility in Financial Budgeting and Planning

Financial agility is becoming a necessity in the business world, as the world of business continues to evolve and become even more dynamic.

Continuous Planning

Improving Agility in Planning and Forecasting

In the recent webcast, How Finance Leaders Plan and Forecast with Agility, a survey highlighted that nearly 55 percent of respondents see planning and budgeting as their primary EPM priority.

Continuous Planning

Dynamic Budgeting, Planning and Reporting for Life Sciences Companies

Companies in the Life Sciences industry – such as Pharmaceutical manufacturers, Biotech companies, and Medical Device manufacturers – are facing major challenges.

Continuous Planning

The Role of the BHAG in Budgeting and Planning

A typical software implementation includes an assessment of the current state systems, processes and requirements. It should also look ahead to your organization’s strategic plan to determine if any future requirements should be included in the assessment.

Continuous Planning

Making the Business Case for Cloud-Based Planning and Reporting

Has your organization outgrown its spreadsheet-based system for budgeting and planning?  Have you “hit the wall” in using spreadsheets for financial consolidation and reporting?

Continuous Planning

How the New Revenue Recognition Rules Could Impact Budgeting and Planning

There’s been a lot of buzz in the accounting and finance community recently about the upcoming change in revenue recognition guidelines from the FASB and IASB.

Continuous Planning

Improving the Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting Cycle

Budgeting, planning and forecasting is a challenging ordeal. For large, dynamic enterprises, it can be incredibly difficult to accurately forecast and allocate budgets across departments.

Continuous Planning

The Limitations of Excel for Corporate Planning and Budgeting

Microsoft Excel is pervasive in the business world, and it has always been particularly popular among financial planners.

Continuous Planning

How to Leverage EPM Software to Improve Revenue Planning

What is the primary goal of EPM software? Sure, it streamlines your planning processes and makes the financial close way easier.

Continuous Planning

EPM and Revenue Planning: Modern Budgeting for Modern Businesses

If revenue planning is difficult, inefficient, time-consuming, and often inaccurate, then enterprise performance management (EPM) software is for you.

Continuous Planning

Planful Modeling Simplifies Planning and Reporting

Following the successful launch and rapid customer adoption of Planful Modeling Cloud, the IT industry analyst community continues to sing the praises of this new solution. 

Continuous Planning

Beyond Budgeting – Are You Ready?

Many organizations are dissatisfied with their annual budgeting process.  Many even dread it.  Yet most organizations continue to support the annual ritual. 

Continuous Planning

Integrating Finance and Operations

Meeting the Needs of Operations Analysts Business modeling is considered an essential element of the planning process within EPM. Modeling sheds light on the causes, not just the effects, of changes in variables that impact business performance.

Continuous Planning

EPM or ERP – Which to Implement First?

Finance organizations in growing enterprises often reach a point where they need to upgrade or replace both their ERP and EPM software systems. Here, they face the dilemma of deciding which to upgrade or replace first – ERP or EPM? This dilemma occurs in one of two scenarios:

Continuous Planning

5 Steps to Agile Finance

January through March can be a stressful time for Finance executives and professionals. With the year-end close, regulatory filings, audits, and tax work, there are constant deadlines and limited time to spend on new initiatives.

Continuous Planning

Hybrid EPM: Accelerating Delivery of New EPM Applications

Does this scenario sound familiar? Your division of a large enterprise has outgrown Excel spreadsheets and is in dire need of a more robust solution for budgeting, planning, forecasting and financial reporting.