Written by Nils R. | Feb 7, 2022 8:00:00 AM
How can
Financial Statement
s Drive Faster and Better Decisions? As CFOs increasingly become key advisors in the Monthly Reporting Process, they must rely on modern self-service corporate performance management (CPM) and business intelligence (BI) tools. Using interactive Financial Statements like the P&L Report with Forecast and Budget template shown below enables them and users from the leadership teams to experience near real time variance analysis comparing a full year forecast to the original budget that help drive faster and better decisions.
Who uses
P&L Reports with Forecasts and Budget
s and What are Some Key Analytical Features? In today’s fast-paced business environment, CFOs are under high pressure to supply end users like budget managers and executive leaders with timely and concise Financial Statements. Companies use key features like the ones below to support their users with effective analysis that helps drive better investment and cost control decisions:
- Variance information showing the difference between the original budget and the full year forecast
- Dynamic full year estimate with Actual data up to the current month and the Forecast for remaining months
- Expandable rows (to drill to GL account and below) and columns (to see summary or individual months)
The P&L Report with Forecast and Budget template can be used as a key element of the Monthly Reporting process: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1533"]
Example of a P&L Report with Forecast and Budget to Streamline the Monthly Reporting Process[/caption] The P&L Report with Forecast and Budget is a ready-to-use Financial Statement from the
Solver Marketplace.
A Brief Description of the
P&L Report with Forecast and Budget
Template Financial Statements like the one seen in the image above are interactive and parameter driven and typically contain sections with professional Profit & Loss row layout with actual, forecast and budget columns (summary and monthly) as well as variances. One of the important features that aid the user in the analysis process is the ability to automatically generate and analyze how well the company is likely to perform for the full year as well as compared to the original budget. P&L Reports with Forecasts and Budgets are often used in conjunction with profit & loss variance reports, balance sheets, cash flow statements, forecast input models and KPI dashboards.
Data Integration to Transaction Systems Most organizations these days want automated and streamlined
planning,
reporting and
analysis. However, many of the benefits described earlier rely on best of breed Corporate Performance Management (CPM) tools and/or Business Intelligence (BI) capabilities as well as data marts or data warehouses that use pre-built integrations to the organization’s ERP system. Oftentimes, they also need integrations to other key data sources like CRM, subscription systems, payroll tools, etc. Modern, cloud-based ERPs like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance (D365 Finance), Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC), Sage Intacct, Acumatica, Netsuite and SAP have robust APIs which allow for dynamic integrations to CPM and BI tools that are fully automated and flexible to run on a schedule or on-demand.
Additional Resources to Aid with Research of Templates, CPM and BI Tools
- Templates from Solver that are pre-built and that work out-of-the-box using the Solver CPM cloud. Click here.
- Template examples: You find more than 500 CPM and BI Template examples here.
- Interactive Dashboard examples: Try Power BI dashboard templates from Solver here.
- Software evaluation and selection:
- Creating efficient processes:
