How to Automate Your Business’ Financial Modeling
Do you wish your business had a better way to manage financial planning? Maybe you need to scale your financial model, but your Excel model or current financial planning software is no longer able to meet your needs. You may need a more efficient financial planning system that eliminates busywork and frees up your team to work on more important tasks.
If your financial modeling software is not keeping up with your business needs, it may be time to automate your business’s financial planning processes. Getting your financial modeling system right is crucial for long-term success. With the right practices, you can accurately analyze financial data and forecast your company’s growth against a number of possible scenarios.
A reliable system for analyzing and organizing financial data through automation will put you significantly ahead of the curve and enable you to plan for the future with better insight and precision.
Benefits of Automated Financial Modeling
Financial models are integral parts of growing and maintaining a business. With the expanding standardization of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Corporate Performance Management (CPM) systems, more businesses are reaping the benefits of automation. We now have the ability to automate increasingly complex tasks such as big data organization and analysis.
Automation has transformed business processes in the past decade due its ability to increase business efficiency, productivity and even creativity. Automating processes that would otherwise take up hours each day helps businesses focus on visionary work instead of mundane operations.
While automating a financial model may seem like an overwhelming task, it’s absolutely necessary if you want to see substantial improvement in your business’s financial strategy. The benefits of automating a financial model include:
Relieves businesses of busywork and frees up employees to focus on higher-order tasks
Provides significant improvements to the quality of resource planning practices
Improves business management by eliminating much of the legwork associated with building, using and adapting financial models
Enhances decision-making abilities by providing accurate and instant calculations
Enables companies to make financial decisions faster and with better information
Allows for a degree of standardization that manual models do not
Streamlines the jobs of financial analysts and business leaders
The benefits of automating your business’s financial model dramatically outweigh the time and patience required.
Steps to Automate a Business Financial Model Through CPM Software
Automating a business financial model requires significant time and energy, but the task is more than doable. There are a few key factors to consider before automating your current financial model, including:
Your business’ fiscal history
Assumptions, financial and growth goals for your business
Your team’s preferences when it comes to using CPM software
What you need your solution to do for your business
Take these four steps to automate your business financial model through CPM software:
Determine a specific goal for automating your financial model. What do you need this system to accomplish for your business in the next quarter, year or five years?
2. Create an outline that documents all model inputs, workings and outputs. How will your
automated financial model work in practice? What are the drivers for the model?
3. Choose CPM software that meets your financial modeling needs and automates all the
right processes. Make sure you find a solution that meets your current needs and can
scale with your business.
4. Be patient. As with any new system, an automated financial model takes time to implement, and
your team will need time to become acclimated to the new processes.
When done right, automating your financial model will render positive results over the long-term.
Tips for Making Financial Software Integration Simple
Make your new software integration process much easier by following these four tips:
Choose a system with features that your current team will find useful.
Invest in cloud-based applications. Doing so makes the overall integration process simpler for everyone involved. In addition, cloud-based data storage can be essential for easy access to data and keeping your CPM software organized.
Make sure you have a solid plan for practical, step-by-step integration. For new systems to work, every user needs to be on the same page.
Give your business time to adjust to the new software tools. Many employers are too quick to overhaul an automated financial modeling software program that still needs to work out technical issues or does not deliver immediate improvements. Keep in mind that there will be a learning curve, and wait until that curve has passed before making drastic changes.
Choose Solver for Your Business’ Financial Planning Software
At Solver, we deliver innovative, business-driven solutions for organizations looking to make faster, better decisions and gain complete insight into their business. Managers can quickly access important financial and operational data and information in a single solution. With automated reporting and planning processes, Solver helps you make better-informed business decisions with greater speed.
If you’re looking for scalable financial modeling software that can be customized to meet your company’s needs, contact the experts at Solver to find out more about what we can do for you.