Why You Should Invest in the Best Financial Planning and Analytics

The role of financial planners and analysts has expanded from assessing and reporting to data science. That’s why there’s a very real need to adopt the best financial planning software.

Financial planners and analysts are now expected to have comprehensive knowledge of to access and collect information from business intelligence (BI), enterprise resource planning (ERP) and other data sources.

But without the right software to support them, their struggles are compounded.

The financial team’s daily struggles

There are many issues that financial planners and analysts face on a daily basis, including:

1. Data-heavy Excel spreadsheets: The bigger the organisation, the more complicated the spreadsheets.
2. Lack of unified view: There’s an expectation that the financial team will present valuable information – collected from numerous data sources – to the C-suite in a way that means they only have to make the final decision. But the path to achieving this is time-consuming and complex.
3. Forecasting errors: In large enterprises that rely on collaboration, it’s a given that there will be communication gaps, multiple versions of the ‘truth’, missed information and basic human error. This means the forecasting process is drawn out and far more painful than necessary.
4. Communication and collation issues: Collecting information and collating the data are entirely separate tasks. They are also extremely challenging in order to deliver the results in a way that is easy to understand for all stakeholders.
5. Slow reporting: Regardless of their job title, every stakeholder wants the latest information in real-time so they can make decisions fast. Without the best financial planning software, the financial team must endure this tedious task perpetually.

Best financial planning software

The ‘best’ financial planning software means different things to different people, but the fact remains that investing in the right software is a must.

IBM Planning Analytics, for example, is one of the top budget-planning software solutions on the market. It automates forecasts, consolidates financial statements and streamlines the reporting process.

More than just financial planning, IBM Planning Analytics simplifies the entire budget process from start to finish. 

To learn more about the best financial planning software on the market, contact Octane Software Solutions to find out how we can help.