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Finance departments frustrated by limited frequency of financial planning

Inefficiencies and over-complicated systems holding back finance departments' planning cycles

FINANCE departments are being prevented from planning their business investments and expenditure more frequently because of inefficiencies and over-complicated systems, according to Accountagility.

Recent research by the software company found that 70% of finance departments want to conduct their key planning processes more than twice a year – the current average – while 28% of finance teams only complete planning cycles once a year.

Over half of CFOs and finance directors feel that the vast number of spreadsheets being used is an obstacle, along with the huge volume of data that needs to be managed and the labour intensity needed to collect, validate, analyse and report on this information.

Robert Gothan, CEO and founder of Accountagility, said these complexities drain key resources, and have a negative impact on the depth and robustness of the resulting plan.

“CFOs are being asked to play an increasingly strategic role in the business, but this is compromised by the amount of manual work involved within their planning processes. This diverts valuable resources from analysing their plans and using this information to generate critical business insight that is crucial to sound governance and future growth,” he said.

“More efficient planning will enable finance departments to spend less time working in the process, and more time working on the business. This approach will not only enable finance teams to facilitate better decisions, but also to pursue more effective investments, which will ultimately help the business maintain their competitive edge in the rapidly changing marketplace.”

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