Have you outgrown Excel for budgeting and planning?

If you’re like many companies, you may be using Excel

spreadsheets to handle your budgeting and planning processes.

But you may have outgrown manual spreadsheets with their cumbersome processes, manual data entry, and hard-to-use templates. If so, it’s time to make the move to a cloud-based budgeting and planning solution and experience streamlined processes, real-time access to data, and increased collaboration.

Here are some common scenarios that mean it’s time for an upgrade.

1. Your time is consumed by managing plans and budgets.
   Managing budgets in Excel means lots of cumbersome and time-consuming manual processes like cutting and pasting, updating formulas and links, manual data entry, building models, and emailing files. If these tasks consume your workday or even spill over into your weekend, it’s time to consider a better approach.
2. Only one person in your organization understands the spreadsheet.
   With Excel there is often one person in charge of building, maintaining, and validating the budgeting and planning spreadsheet. But having a single person who understands and is responsible for the spreadsheet puts your company at risk if that person moves on. A cloud-based platform provides access to all key users and ensures continuity.
3. You’ve fallen prey to formula errors.
   It can happen to anyone. Even though you double-checked all your formulas, there’s one that didn’t get updated properly. Your company relies on accurate planning and budget numbers to make critical decisions, and when formula errors occur it erodes everyone’s confidence in the process and impacts profitability.
4. It’s difficult to protect sensitive information.
   Your budgets include information – such as salary data – that you don’t want everyone to see. With spreadsheets, you have to rely on emailing files or shared drives to distribute information, creating the possibility of unauthorized access to sensitive material. A budgeting and planning solution like Sage Intacct Budgeting and Planning allows you to securely distribute the data each person or department needs to see.
5. You’re not sure that you’re working on the right version of the spreadsheet.
   One of the biggest Excel challenges is version control. As the year progresses and business conditions change, different departments and individuals may need to update the spreadsheet, making it difficult to know which version is the most recent. And operating from data that’s not current can have a significant negative impact on your company’s success. Sage Intacct Budgeting and Planning provides one current budget and plan for everyone.
6. It’s difficult to get the right information to the right people.
   Using Excel for budgeting means maintaining distribution lists and relying on email to distribute critical information. Key stakeholders are forced to dig through their inboxes to find the most current data. With a cloud-based budgeting and planning solution, everyone goes to the same place to access up-to-date data.
7. It takes too long to produce monthly reports.
   You rely on timely reports to make critical strategic decisions. But with Excel, you have to download your monthly data into a CSV file, then cut and paste it into the spreadsheet – a cumbersome and time-consuming process that delays producing the reports you need. Sage Intacct Budgeting and Planning integrates with Sage Intacct so that you can seamlessly import the information you need to create timely, accurate reports.
8. You don’t have time for analysis and other strategic activities.
   Managing your budgeting and planning with spreadsheets can be so time consuming that you don’t have time for the more strategic aspects of your job such as analysis. You spend so much time looking back that you can’t look forward at the challenges and opportunities you face. A budgeting and planning solution automates day-to-day budget and plan management and streamlines the process so that you have time to focus on contributing to the growth of your company.

Any one of these signs may be enough to consider a different approach. But three or more means it’s time for a new solution. In the past, most budgeting and planning solutions were created for large companies and were both a poor fit and too expensive for smaller organizations. Sage Intacct Budgeting and Planning was built specifically for smaller companies. It offers fast deployment, easy collaboration, seamless workflows – and is priced right for smaller businesses. And it integrates seamlessly with Sage Intacct. For a comprehensive list of Sage Intacct Budgeting and Planning features and functionality,

Have you outgrown Excel for your budgeting and planning? Sage Intacct Budgeting and Planning can bring flexibility and control to your budgeting a planning process. Call MicroAccounting today at 855-876-3773 to find out more.