Fashionable companies are advanced and sometimes must entry monetary information from any variety of totally different platforms and codecs. Whereas every platform brings its benefits to the desk, there’s little doubt that consolidating monetary information in a single place is the simplest manner for individuals in monetary planning and evaluation (FP&A) roles to convey worth to their organizations.

A survey by Deloitte revealed that 75% of CFOs count on the pandemic to have a extreme impact on their enterprise and don’t count on demand to return to pre-pandemic ranges till later this yr. Nonetheless, they recognized digitization and streamlining processes because the keys to serving to their companies survive powerful instances. It’s protected to say that these expectations carry over to small companies as effectively.

Consolidating information is step one firms must take when creating streamlined processes. Listed below are 5 advantages of monetary information consolidation for organizations of all sizes.

1. Higher Price range and Price Projections

FP&A professionals routinely run into hurdles when finishing month-to-month closes which are important for budgeting and value projection. Typically, finance departments choose to make use of previous, trusty templates and add information from varied elements of the enterprise as wanted. Nonetheless, because the month attracts to an in depth, all of those information must be up to date and verified.

A single platform that enables departments to enter their information of their most popular format and routinely transforms it into the FP&A staff’s chosen format will enhance the tempo of the month-to-month shut. Consequently, finance groups can present the CFO with higher value projections that feed into working capital calculations.

An automatic system that pulls in numbers from departments in real-time makes life even simpler for finance groups. Because of breaking down working bills in real-time, enterprise house owners can have better confidence of their numbers and create correct projections.

2. Constant Reporting

Excel continues to be the software program of selection in lots of companies and with good cause. It’s versatile and extremely customizable. Additionally, each skilled within the trade has been educated on it. Shifting to a different resolution doesn’t make sense.

Nonetheless, consolidating information in an Excel sheet is hard, particularly for bigger organizations. One of the best platform options increase Excel workflows as an alternative of attempting to interchange them. By integrating these options with Excel, finance groups can pull information routinely into their spreadsheets and have them organized for evaluation.

Groups can then export these information to ready-made report templates that change dynamically because of real-time information feeds. The result’s a constant report format that eliminates handbook work and eliminates errors. CFOs and enterprise house owners can simply view the monetary affect of their choices.

Advert-hoc reporting is simple as effectively, because of integration which ends up in superior filtering capabilities showing inside Excel. Groups can slice and cube information simply to current higher insights throughout conferences and shows.

3. Higher Funding Selections

Many groups depend on handbook reporting processes and this solely will increase the quantity of clerical work they’ve to hold out. Gathering information from diverse sources solely will increase this work, and there’s little time left for analyzing numbers.

Automating information assortment right into a single platform eliminates the necessity for handbook processes. It additionally frees up groups to execute value-add processes resembling figuring out key drivers in a enterprise. Capital allocation is among the most important duties in a enterprise.

Groups can paint a extra correct image of a enterprise’ strengths and weaknesses by diving into COGS, Capex, Opex, and different monetary information. House owners, armed with this information, could make higher capital allocation choices and mannequin totally different situation outcomes.

As an example, house owners can mannequin the result of shopping for a smaller competitor versus projecting revenues by constructing a enterprise unit internally. Whereas surface-level income comparisons are useful, consolidated information will help resolution makers analyze the impact of demand swings on division budgets and second-order penalties.

4. A Single Level of Fact

Disparate information sources make sustaining information integrity near not possible. When every little thing’s decentralized, finance staff members can not run correct projections or trust of their numbers, as a result of they’re by no means certain of how true their assumptions are.

Whereas making a shared Excel file permits a number of customers to share their information on a single web page, it complicates information integrity. Excel can not create a cell-level audit path that may determine sources of error. Neither can it routinely validate information and verify it for consistency. Stopping double entries and redundancies can also be not possible.

Anticipating staff to manually validate cell-level information is unrealistic. An automatic platform that integrates with Excel can have minimal workflow affect and can convey the facility of expertise to get rid of handbook validation processes.

The result’s a totally validated supply of information that has excessive integrity. Groups can construct projections utilizing this base and execute their duties higher.

5. Simpler Entry to Perception

Analytics platforms are in all places, however they’re solely nearly as good as the info they’re fed.

Companies which have highly effective analytics engines backed by handbook information validation processes should not extracting essentially the most profit from their software program.

An analytics package deal can’t shed perception into an organization’s financials with out receiving a full image. By bringing all of their information right into a single place, operating analytics and dashboarding information is less complicated. Armed with perception, companies could make higher choices.

Well worth the Migration

Consolidating monetary information right into a single place may require a change in mindset, nevertheless it’s effectively definitely worth the funding. The advantages outweigh the friction, and firms can enhance the standard of their choices considerably.