Purpose of Expense Analysis Dashboards Universities and colleges use Expense Dashboards to provide executives with different ways to slice and compare operating expenses. When used as part of good business practices in Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) departments, an organization can improve its decision speed and surplus/deficit, and it can reduce the chances that leaders miss areas of unplanned overspending.
Example of an Expense Dashboard Here is an example of an Expense Analysis Dashboard with comparison of different uses of funds as well as budget variances.
Who Uses This Type of Dashboard? The typical users of this type of dashboard are: CFO, accounting managers, budget managers, cost accountants. Other Reports Often Used in Conjunction with Expense Dashboards Progressive Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) departments sometimes use several different Expense Dashboards, along with Financial statements, detailed expense reports, annual budgets, KPI dashboards and other management and control tools.
Where Does the Data for Analysis Originate From? The Actual (historical transactions) data typically comes from enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems like: Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) Finance, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC), Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Sage Intacct, Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage X3, SAP Business One, SAP ByDesign, Acumatica, Netsuite and others. In analyses where budgets or forecasts are used, the planning data most often originates from in-house Excel spreadsheet models or from professional corporate performance management (CPM/EPM) solutions.
What Tools are Typically used for Reporting, Planning and Dashboards? Examples of business software used with the data and ERPs mentioned above are:
- Native ERP report writers and query tools
- Spreadsheets (for example Microsoft Excel)
- Corporate Performance Management (CPM) tools (for example Solver)
- Dashboards (for example Microsoft Power BI and Tableau)
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TAGS: Reporting, Planning, Forecasting, Analysis, Budgeting, CPM, ERP, Dashboards, Industry, Financial Reporting, Template Library