There are many challenges that face Budget or Forecast system implementers, but one of the biggest challenges is acceptance by the end-user (those that actually enter the budgeting numbers).  The budgeting process itself is often viewed as an onerous part of the role of managers or administrators. No matter what the budgeting solution’s claims of making-the-job-easier, end users still don’t like it.

We often find ourselves delving into what makes budgeting such a painful task and one of the complaints that we frequently hear is, “Even after I give them all the numbers, I still get calls weeks and months later, asking me to explain them”.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a system that allows the budgeter or contributor to enter enough information to the budget spreadsheet to satisfy the finance group?

True Sky has two separate solutions for this complaint – notes (which we will examine in a later post), and Line Item Details.

Line Item Details allows budgeters to enter descriptions and amounts at a level below the GL Account – these amounts, then, build up the total and provide explanations to those seeking that detail.  For example, in traditional budgeting solutions, you would enter $1500 for your monthly Airfare Expense charges and then have to maintain on a separate worksheet that you were going to spend $1000 on the ‘big sales trip to Las Vegas’ and $500 on the smaller ‘trip to Wichita’ .  Six months later when someone inquired as to where that $1500 came from, you would have to:

• Find that workbook
• Locate the explanation
• Send that to them

In True Sky, you can enter the details of those trips at the time of budgeting. You enter the individual items and True Sky sums them up to create the Budgeted Amount.  When someone wants to examine the details, those individual items are stored centrally and are available to anyone with the correct security access.  They don’t have to bother you – the details are there – saving time and frustration.

In subsequent posts we will examine how True Sky, Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting, uses Line Item Detail to assist both the Budget Contributor and the Budget Approver.

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What’s you’re biggest challenge when it comes to the budgeting and planning process? Let us know in the box below!