The quality of your business intelligence is only as good as your data sources. Are you confident that the data you are using is accurate, up to date, and specific? Many businesses automatically assume that analytics should come from your accounting data, or the enterprise resource planning system (ERP). This…

Sales forecasting can be one of the most complicated business practices to master, but its rewards are invaluable. Good sales forecasting allows you to make better informed decisions on future resource allocation, identify potential prospects or challenges, avoid unexpected cash flow problems, and much more. But the benefit of sales…

A balanced budget can mean several things. It can have the traditional meaning of balancing your expenses and income so that you do not run a deficit. But it can also mean balancing your time and business resources during the budgeting process. Your budget tells a story about your business…

You already know that you need to sell your products or services to your customers, but did you also know that you need to sell your budget to your team? As we wrote about last week, budget accountability is everyone’s responsibility. Good corporate governance depends on getting your team on…

Strong business management involves a good budgeting and forecasting process. But who is ultimately responsible for that budget? Depending on the size of your organization, you may have a dedicated budget manager or finance team. You may have an accounting department. Your operations manager might take on the bulk of…

Microsoft Excel is one of the most preferred tools for business budgeting, and for good reason. It’s familiar, so it requires less training time. It has flexibility and can work as a basic tool for any size of business. And it is easy to create formulas that meet your specific…

Microsoft Excel can be a great tool for business budgeting, there’s no doubt about it. But it does have its limitations. One of those limitations is the lack of workflow tools, which are crucial to your business budgeting process. A good corporate budget process needs controls: a workflow management system,…

Make Sure Your Strategic Planning and Budget are Aligned Every business needs a budget, right? But how do you know if your budget is right for your business? For most organizations, it is not enough to simply track all of its expenses and revenue. For your business budget (and your…

Your business intelligence strategy is a roadmap for your business’s success — and so is your corporate budget. Therefore, it makes good sense for the two to be connected. But further than that, your business intelligence strategy and budget shouldn’t exist as separate entities. They should co-exist and inform one…

2018 marks Canada’s 151st birthday. From coast to coast, we celebrate all that we have in common and acknowledge the heritage passed down to us. We hope you and your loved ones have a great day celebrating. Happy Birthday, Canada!