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, approvals, rules, audits, etc. It needs a flow. Otherwise, it will take a lot longer than necessary and is likely to result in a lot more stress, errors, and money wasted.

According to PwC, there are several main reasons why budget and planning stakeholders find the process frustrating. These include:

1. It takes too long.
2. It is out of date before it is even finished.
3. Too many iterations.
4. The budget is cast in stone, although business conditions are always changing.
5. By the time it is done, you do not even recognize the numbers.
6. It does not match the business objectives you are accountable to.

One solution that can significantly improve, if not erase, all of these frustrations is choosing a workflow automation software.

Budgeting software that allows you to build in workflow automation and a control system can remove a lot of the hassle. Being able to view at a glance what manager needs to approve the budget next, who still hasn’t seen it, and what the next steps are results in easier collaboration and more efficient and productive communication.

Here are some other ways workflow automation software can help:

• Automatically capture data so financial staff can focus more on analysis.

• Automate tedious tasks that take up too much time and resources.

• Integrates into existing systems, so there is no need for manual re-entry (this also eliminates most human errors).

• Uses a common language designed for every department in the company.

• Allows for quick budget iterations and what-if scenarios. Easily view past versions of the budget, or project possible future scenarios.

• Use rolling forecasts to spread out the workload across the whole year.

Our workflow tool, True Sky, lets you make the business budgeting process simple and transparent. You can view at a glance what manager needs to approve the budget next, who still hasn’t seen it, and what the next steps are. This results in easier collaboration, and more efficient and productive communication.

Plus, our tool uses Microsoft Excel, but allows you to work beyond Excel’s limitations. The interface is familiar with all the same spreadsheet fields and same data and calculation methods, but with the additional abilities that let you control your workflow.

Want to learn more about True Sky? Contact us for a free demo today. Visit www.truesky.com or call 1 855 878 3759.