MODERN DEMANDS FOR FORECASTS AND BUDGETING CHALLENGE THE TRADITION

Companies increasingly focus on being able to work much more dynamically with their budgeting. The static way is on the wane. In a volatile world, there must be an ability to pull out updated forecasts quickly and use them to make the right strategic choices. However, this presupposes that the companies’ forecasts are based on a solid data foundation and can easily visualise changes in all or parts of the business.

Martin Mark Rasmussen, a partner at exacto, is the primary leader in the development of solutions for budgeting and forecasts. According to him, it is a development that applies across industries, in which a central requirement is that decision-makers must have access to insights based on a solid and complete data foundation. This must include the latest performance data so they can make the right decisions at the right time.

From static to rolling budget

"We see an increasing tendency for companies to want to move from the static budget based on the calendar year to a rolling forecast that includes the latest realised data and all along moves the financial outlook forward", explains Martin Mark Rasmussen, and elaborates:

"The static budget or anchor budget is simply insufficient in a volatile world, in which constant changes in everything from exchange rates and logistics to supply chains and geopolitics mean that you must be able at any time to create a new, current overview of changes across all of the business units and simulate on new scenarios, and on that basis make decisions about any changes in the priorities".

Confidence and documentation

According to Martin Mark Rasmussen, it is important to remember in this connection that, in order to maintain fundamental confidence among stakeholders, companies must always be able to provide insight into how they are performing, and which expectations and forecasts underlie the current strategic priorities. With information that provides an updated and accurate picture. It may be a requirement in connection with acquisitions or new partnerships. Therefore, it is essential that this is accessible quickly, simply and with the possibility to filter precisely according to the requested numbers and desired scenarios. And it must, of course, be without drawing upon large resources or taking a long time.

Scalable growth

Another priority, which is similarly spreading, is the demand for scalability that supports the company’s development: 

"Regardless of whether we’re talking about organic growth or growth in connection with mergers and acquisitions, we see that a possibility for being able to scale without limitations is essential. Quick and agile onboarding of new users from new business units is, by its very nature, crucial to maintaining the timeliness and precision so central to always being up-to-date and being able to navigate and make the right decisions", explains Martin Mark Rasmussen.   

Specifically in connection with mergers and acquisitions, he also emphasises how important it is that the process can take place as quickly and flexibly as possible:   

"When we talk about post-merger integration, we have historically seen that the lack of opportunity for rapid integration of new business units can become critical and block future operations. Therefore, there is a growing demand that the digital platform must be orchestrated so that quick and simple integration of the new units is possible".  

New, fast and user-optimised workflows

exacto’s tailored solutions for financial planning have exactly the dynamic touch that many companies demand today. The solutions are based on exacto core®, which utilises the synergies between Microsoft Excel and Microsoft SQL for a familiar and intuitive user interface on top of strong database technology.