Written by Nils R. | Jan 29, 2022 8:00:00 AM
How can
Financial Statement
s Drive Faster and Better Decisions? As Corporate Controllers 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 Profit & Loss Variance Report template shown below enables them and users from the accounting and FP&A teams to experience near real time revenue, expense and profit analysis that help drive faster and better decisions.
Who uses
Profit & Loss Variance Report
s and What are Some Key Analytical Features? In today’s fast-paced business environment, Corporate Controllers are under high pressure to supply end users like CFOs 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 faster and better decisions:
- Automated narrative on the top of the report that describes the revenue and net profit results
- Columns with monthly actual and budget figures as well as variance columns with color indicators
- Users can expand rows to drill into GL account-level detail
The Profit & Loss Variance Report template can be used as a key element of the Monthly Reporting process: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="2560"]
Example of a Profit & Loss Monthly Variance Report to Streamline the Monthly Reporting Process[/caption] The Profit & Loss Variance Report is a ready-to-use Financial Statement from the
Solver Marketplace.
A Brief Description of the
Profit & Loss Variance Report
Template Financial Statements like the one seen in the image above are interactive and parameter driven and typically contain sections with narrative followed by fully formatted P&L report. One of the important features that aid the user in the analysis process is the ability to use dynamic parameters, exception indicators and drill-down to get a complete picture of monthly revenues, expense margins and profitability. Profit & Loss Variance Reports are often used in conjunction with profit & loss trend reports, balance sheets, cash flow statements 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:
