Purpose of Financial Dashboards Manufacturing companies use Financial Dashboards to provide executives with an easy way to analyze financial performance. When used as part of good business practices in Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) departments, an organization can improve and speed up its decision-making, and it can reduce the chances that leaders don't frequently pay attention to financial metrics because of lack of self-service or too much detail.
Example of a Financial Summary Dashboard Here is an example of a Financial Dashboard for a manufacturing company with key metrics from the P&L and balance sheet as well as headcount information.
Who Uses This Type of Dashboard? The typical users of this type of dashboard are: Executives, CFOs, analysts. Other Reports Often Used in Conjunction with Financial Dashboards Progressive Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) departments sometimes use several different Financial Dashboards, along with detailed versions of profit & loss reports, balance sheets, cash flow statements, revenue 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