Effective management of budgets can be time consuming, but time spent ensuring you have the right strategies in place can be of huge benefit for the future.
In these unsettled times, our budgeting methods are having to be drastically adapted, often at short notice. While you may in the past have managed to plod along with the same tools and processes year after year, we now have much more volatile circumstances. So much has changed, and so too must our budgeting strategies.
Effective management of budgets can be complicated and time consuming, but time spent ensuring you have the right strategies in place can certainly be of huge benefit for the future. Thankfully there are some helpful tools to ensure the processes are not too complex or arduous for you. Here are four key points to consider, that will help you budget better in changeable and uncertain times.
1. Moving forward is worth it
Getting out of your comfort zone can seem daunting, but time spent automating processes will definitely save a lot of time in the long run. For every step, from gathering and consolidating data to analysis processes, there are several aspects that can be made easier with the right tools. Making changes for the better will put you in a more powerful position to keep up with a mutable world and put you ahead of your competition.
2. Pay close attention to the main profit drivers
Identifying your major top line and profit drivers is key to ensuring your budget is being well placed in the correct areas. With some good analysis you can streamline your business processes and ensure that financial and operational functions are well aligned.
3. Look to the future
Hindsight they say, is 20/20 but when you can use your analytical software to take a look into the future, why wouldn’t you take full advantage of this? With the right tools, you have a rolling forecast at your fingertips. This gives you some great opportunities to plan and budget for upcoming market changes. Predicting the impact of changes such as increased demand for products or services due to particular circumstances such as seasonal changes will ensure that cash flow, staffing or stock levels are all perfectly in tune with requirements.
4. Take full advantage of the tools available to you
Thankfully these days you don’t have to be a genius data analyst to access the full potential of your data, nor will you have to spend weeks poring over a mountain of spreadsheets trying to make sense of it all. With powerful tools such as NetSuite Planning and Budgeting, your budgeting processes become simpler, less time consuming and more useful. With data being automatically integrated into the NetSuite system, there’s no requirement for manual data input. It’s easy to use, with intuitive dashboards giving you an ‘at a glance’ insight into your business, forecasts for the future and much more. For more information on how NetSuite can benefit your business, contact us today.