This article zooms in on budgeting solutions for professional sports organizations using Dynamics GP, with a focus on planning processes.
How do you budget for your company? Microsoft Excel might be the go-to software for finance departments, but Excel isn’t meant to handle planning for organizations of a bigger size, like professional sports teams. More Dynamics GP customers are choosing independent software vendor (ISV) budgeting tools for updating and enhancing their planning processes. Modern third party solutions streamline budgeting and forecasting by focusing in on secure teamwork. This article will discuss the impact of modern ISV budgeting tools, so your professional sports team can build modern planning processes with Dynamics GP.
Financial planning usually requires multiple business professionals coming together with departmental actuals and research-driven projections to formulate a budget. Despite the frustration of logistics and security issues when you collaborate with all departments of your organizations using Excel, especially one as large and diverse as a professional sports team, you can find the spreadsheet program everywhere in the finance and budgeting world. Most organizations still work within Excel, so an ISV budgeting tool might seem like an expense your company could avoid, but keep in mind that, when reports and spreadsheets contain more data than it was built to handle, Excel can become sluggish. In a large organization, you will need a tool that enables real-time data sharing and updating. Having a proper view of the bigger picture with a BI tool that can combine information from various data sources will provide a clear analysis of your data no matter how massive the size. Managers are investing in budgeting tools because it gives them the ability to accomplish more through collaborative planning for a project or the entire organization. Also, some planning tools are Excel add-ins, which means users can enjoy the familiarity in formulas and features while eliminating manually linking spreadsheets together for a complete budget, as well as any room for human error. The best ISV planning solutions are easy-to-use in terms of automation and reusable templates because they come equipped with accounting logic. Third party budgeting tools like Solver’s BI360, Oracle’s Hyperion, and many more are responding to consumer demand for practical, logistically secure solutions to stretch the teamwork aspect of planning. Budget managers are able to give departments responsibility over budgets they have to meet through the year without numerous attachments, tedious spreadsheet linking, and long email threads, all because of the security and streamlining of these budgeting tools. From there, a budget manager can compile a thorough budget plan, and the potential return on your investment is easily measured in time, money, and energy. When looking for a planning software to enhance your Dynamics GP experience, be sure to research proprietary interfaces in comparison to Excel add-in offerings, integration methods, a complete suite of BI solutions, budgeting capabilities, and web budgeting for your professional sport team needs. Because Microsoft Excel is prevalent in the business realm, Excel add-ins with underlying databases and user security are extremely popular. Companies take the software we all know so well and expand the features and functionalities, so you can easily create powerful, reusable budget templates. If learning a brand new set of formatting and coding to create a budget is not a problem for you and your company, there are other options. Some ISVs believe Excel is logistically messy, mostly since they have brought their own proprietary product to market. Keep in mind that you’ll have to invest in training regardless, but an Excel add-in application will shorten the learning curve due to its familiarity in the accounting and finance realm. No budgeting solution will address every issue your company encounters, but certain capabilities are foundational in terms of planning tools. Modern tools should provide you the ability to bring together your historical figures, distribute totals across a year, add more line items for accounts, convert multiple figures, perform roll-ups, view authorship and employ parameters, like Department, Division, and Entity. With a budgeting solution, you are able to perform “what if” analyses, for example when you are considering how the ticket prices, advertising revenue, player cost or travel expenses can differ. Take a look at these blogs that focus on the difference between an
online analytical processing (OLAP) cube and a data warehouse (DW) integration, and the decision regarding
live reporting versus a BI data store integration. Ease-of-use should be the top priority for your company of business end users that make up the budgeting taskforce. Is there someone in your team that can manage an OLAP cube? Do you have multiple types of data that need to be consolidated into one space? In terms of analytical tasks, how does a particular budgeting solution fit into your BI plan? There are numerous budgeting software solutions, such as BI360, that are part of a comprehensive suite of BI tools. To truly plan for the future, your company should prepare for upgrading your financial reporting, dashboards, and/or data storage by looking at BI suites. As the budgeting realm evolves, you should also consider including web options. Cloud- and Web-based budgeting tools are becoming more prevalent today. These options offer you the same functionality, but now users can access their data and budgets anywhere they are as long as they have internet connection. To improve your Dynamics GP budgeting experience, I suggest you do research and familiarize yourself with what features and functions would help decide the best tool for your professional sports team.
Solver enables world-class decisions with BI360, a leading web-based CPM suite made up of budgeting, reporting, dashboards, and data warehousing, delivered through a web portal. Solver is reinventing CPM with its next generation solution. BI360 empowers business users with modern features including innovative use of Excel in the model design process. If you’re interested in learning more, our team is excited to hear about your organizational needs and goals.
June 30, 2016
TAGS: excel, Sports, forecasting, Microsoft Dynamics, budgeting, professional sports, Cloud, Crystal Reports, biznet, prophix, OLAP Cubes, jet reports, BI360, BI360 Planning, Host Analytics, Maestro, dynamics gp, business intelligence, Centage, Adaptive Insights, data warehouse, BI Solutions, Dashboards, DW