Cloud FP&A - the Future of Financial Planning and Analysis Software

The cloud services (infrastructure as a service, platform as a service, software as a service) as an industry are set to reach $1 trillion in global value before the end of the decade. This reflects a massive adoption of cloud-based services across sectors. But the finance sector in particular is quickly adopting the power of cloud FP&A - to great effect.?

A Google Cloud survey found that, of the financial services companies surveyed, 83% were using cloud technology as a part of their primary computing infrastructures. Compare that to a survey done in 2015 that found only 25% of companies were using cloud FP&A software.?

The reason for this massive surge in adoption rates of cloud FP&A solutions is simple: the improved functionality helps businesses do more with their financial data, faster.?

With the right cloud FP&A systems in place, your organization can:

• Scale seamlessly
• Facilitate communication across teams
• Access real-time data from your ERP to forecast and quickly generate insights
• Create a proactive and not a reactive finance team, able to accurately account for a variety of what-if scenarios

All this and more is possible with the right cloud FP&A platform.

Let’s take a deeper look at how cloud financial planning and analysis software can help your organization stay competitive in the coming decade.?

Scale Faster and with Fewer Headaches

One of the reasons that cloud has seen such widespread, massive growth across sectors is the power of cloud to facilitate scaling.?

After all, with all your computing power and storage capacity online, you will always be able to quickly calibrate your cloud FP&A platform to meet your needs.?

When it comes to managing your finances (budgeting and forecasting, financial reporting, workforce planning, etc.) each additional client, hire, or new revenue stream creates exponential amounts of demand on your finance team.?

Hiring on additional FP&A experts to account for this growth is one way to handle the increased workload, but an expensive one - a full-time hire with experience will run your business in the $85,000 per year range. Besides, this is a stopgap measure; your financial planning and analysis tools and processes in place, while functional at lower volume, are clearly not able to meet the higher demand.?

The best way to solve this issue - permanently - is to optimize the process itself rather than drain revenue by bringing on more and more team members.?

Besides, if your process lacks automation capabilities, the capacity to centralize data, your financial planning and analysis software lacks accessibility and is slow, etc., then you’ll end up wasting the time of these FP&A experts on rote, repetitive tasks that are better suited to computers anyways. They’re faster and more accurate. Your people, on the other hand, should be more focused on forecasting and planning while the number crunching can be done by machines.?

All this and more can be accomplished with cloud FP&A software.?

Cloud computing, cloud storage, easy accessibility, efficient user interfaces, simplicity when scaling up or down to meet demands - all these qualities make scaling the financial planning side of your operations to meet your business where it’s at in its development seamless.?

Communicate More Easily with Cloud Financial Planning and Analysis Tools

One of the biggest financial planning challenges that businesses face when growing is that their teams grow, budgets get more complicated, new clients/products are added on, and each of these produce their own sets of data that then needs to be collected and collated in order to perform FP&A activities.?

You’ll find that many finance teams spend far too long running around gathering numbers and data. This involves endless email streams back and forth, long phone calls that can disrupt workflows, and generally just a whole heap of busy work that is not the optimal use of a financial expert’s time.?

This is the unfortunate reality that many finance teams face.?

The good news is that the right cloud FP&A solutions make all these problems evaporate like, well, wisps of clouds.?

That’s because the cloud allows for easy communication across teams, as well as automatic collection, consolidation, and centralization of data. This means no more data jockeying, and instead, your financial team can put its time to more productive use.?

Better yet, this also greatly reduces the opportunity for errors during reporting, ultimately leading to an increase in accuracy of your numbers, which in turn helps with forecasting and scenario planning (see below).?

Access Real-Time Data Straight from Your ERP

Above we analyzed how a cloud FP&A platform can consolidate information rapidly. How? One way is that cloud financial planning and analysis software actually integrates with your existing ERP, allowing it to collect data straight from the source.?

This process is fast, easy, and leaves no room for human error.?

Best yet, it provides your FP&A team with real-time data from which they can make informed decisions when planning.?

Your FP&A software, in other words, will not only collect your data faster, but also unlock insights that may have been impossible to see due to the silos that naturally form at organizations as they grow larger.?

More good news: cloud FP&A systems are actually adept at integrating with a wide variety of existings systems, including ERPs, human resource management tools, existing Excel spreadsheets, etc.?

Develop Proactive Planning?

That real-time data is a massive advantage to your FP&A team when they are undertaking workforce planning, forecasting, and what-if scenario planning.?

These tasks require the most up-to-date information - or they simply won’t provide accurate and actionable results.?

Think of it like this: if you conducted your financial planning using data from Q1 2019 - before the Pandemic really had a chance to set in - and never touched your projections again, this would deliver dramatically distorted forecasts. But if you have cloud FP&A systems that are able to incorporate real-time data, you can adjust those forecasts as you go, using recent quarterly data and developments (like the pandemic) to influence your forecasting efforts, significantly boosting accuracy.?

Proven Cloud FP&A Solution That Helps Your Business Grow - Without Headaches

If your business wants to get the most out of its FP&A team and no longer wants to run into traditional roadblocks that companies face when growing, then you need cloud FP&A. You need Limelight FP&A Software.?

Limelight Software is adept at helping you complete all your budgeting, forecasting, planning, and analysis activities faster and more accurately. With our powerful cloud FP&A platform backing your business, you can save thousands of hours and uncover hundreds of thousands in hidden costs, reduce budget reviews, and otherwise give you your time back.?

Save money, get a more comprehensive picture of your business’s financial health, plan and forecast easier - you can achieve all this with Limelight as your cloud FP&A software. Book a demo to see how our platform can help your business thrive.?