Planful Perform 2021: Day 1 Packed in the Value for Finance and Accounting Professionals

Planful Perform 2021 Day 1 just concluded and the stats speak for themselves:

2 keynotes
4 drill-downs on everyday tips & tricks
5 discussions of finance and accounting techniques
7 customer-led sessions
Over 2,000 registrants!

These keynotes, hands-on sessions, stories, chats, and trainings—by and for finance and accounting professionals—served as a fitting kickoff to this two-day online conference. Each discussion was designed to help you break new ground, speed decisions, and accelerate your business, now and well into tomorrow. Based on the feedback from attendees throughout the day, Perform 2021 exceeded even those lofty expectations!

Here’s an overview of Planful Perform 2021 Day 1.

Insightful Keynotes

Planful CEO Grant Halloran kicked off Perform by explaining why the time to take action is now. He also shared his thoughts on why speed, efficiency, and transformational thinking must be your new normal.

Finance and accounting executives from Abbott, Starkey, and Specialized Bicycle Components joined Kimberly Simms, Planful Chief Customer Officer, to explain how they’re leading through change, driving faster decisions, and using Planful as the foundation of their transformation of finance.

Watch the session recordings here.

Planful Customer Stories

Perform 2021 offered Planful customers a forum to share their own stories and give attendees a better sense of how actual finance and accounting professionals put Planful to work every day. In addition to the customer panel mention above, the first day of Perform 2021 featured six customer-led sessions.

Steinway & Sons covered how it uses Planful to automate reports, ease monthly manufacturing analysis, and generate granular unit sales forecasts.
Imagen Dental Partners explained how it overcame financial reporting friction with the help of CFO Solutions and Planful. Gaylord Miller, the company’s Director of FP&A, also led a second session explaining how the company modernized its financial reporting using substitution variables and derived variables.
LifeStance Health walked through how it uses Planful’s real-time collaboration tools to get the story behind the numbers from the stakeholders who know the business best.
Specialized Bicycle Components explained how it overcame the global challenges of cross-border currencies, languages, and regulations, and the internal hurdles of multiple systems, lack of visibility, and varying employee agreements, all using Planful for Workforce Planning.
CC Industries (CCI) covered how it uses Planful to give easily give insights to stakeholders so they can spot trends, identify performance gaps, and stay ahead of goals.
The Lead Group explained how it moved to driver-based planning and accounting processes to streamline financial reporting.

Watch the customer session recordings here.

Practitioners Who Are Accelerating Now

Perform 2021 Day 1 offered the latest progressive thinking behind the transformation of finance. Experts and thought leaders from various areas shared ways to overcome the tendency to hit pause during uncertain times, and instead move forward with intent and confidence. Topics included:

Learning how to modernize beyond static annual plans and start to “Plan For Change With Rolling Forecasts.”
Finding ways to give Finance more time to collaborate with the business by “Minimizing Your Monthly Close.”
Learning how to jazz up your executive reporting by “Creating BOARD Books, Not Bored Books.”
Trintech and Planful joined together to lead a session on “Bringing Finance and Accounting Teams Together for a Faster Close and More Accurate FP&A Process.”
Three FP&A experts hosted an “Ask Me Anything” session on common FP&A challenges, from hiring and forecasting to business partnering and executive presentations.

Watch the thought leader sessions here.

New Tips & Tricks

Whether or not you’re a Planful customer, Perform 2021 Day 1 offered new techniques to help improve, streamline, and accelerate your daily workflow. These sessions focused on everyday finance and accounting tasks from a fresh perspective. Sessions included:

Learning how to make foreign exchange and currency analysis a critical capability by “Tempering FX Volatility With Currency Analysis.”
Reviewing the new enhancements to Planful reporting that provide more insightful, easier to use reports in less time with “Getting More Reporting Power With New Enhancements.”
Tips on use cases such as baby cash flow, indirect cash flow projections, driver-based cash flow analysis, and other advanced topics in “Cash Flow Use Cases, Tips & Tricks, and More.”
Learning why it’s time to start “Using Automation To Accelerate Planning and Consolidation” to expedite planning processes and financial close and consolidation cycles.