Financial Planning & Analysis

FP&A, also known as financial planning and analysis, refers to the strategic activities that are critical to the overall financial health of all companies—regardless of size, revenue or industry.  In this guide, we focus on the finer details of FP&A, ranging from the basics to the best tools and everything in between. ⚡ Quick Links   1 What Is FP&A? 2 FP&A Processes 3 FP&A Best Practices 4 FP&A Benefits 5 FP&A Roles 6 FP&A Career Paths 7 FP&A Tools   What Is FP&A? Financial planning and analysis is a set of four distinct activities that support a company’s financial health. These four activities include: Planning and budgeting Integrated financial planning Management and performance reporting Forecasting and modeling Unlike accounting in general, FP&A is unique in the way that it focuses on forward-looking data to predict and prepare for future outcomes. Why Do Businesses Need FP&A Processes? As noted above, there are four activities associated with financial planning and analysis. With those in mind, let’s examine five points associated with these activities: 1. Analyzing Your Company’s Current Financial Circumstances No matter your approach to financial planning and analysis, the first step is to always analyze your company’s current financial circumstances. 2. Defining Financial Goals Outline short and long-term financial goals that fit within your budget and make sense for your organization’s overall financial plan. 3. Consider Variables and Run What-If Scenarios This is where forecasting comes into play. Consider variables and run what-if scenarios to prepare for anything the future could bring—both good and bad. 4. Create a Plan of Action Financial planning and analysis is only as good as your plan of action. You can collect and analyze as much data as you want, but it’s only useful if you back it up with a plan of action. 5. Re-Evaluate and Revise as Necessary Even if you’re fully dedicated to FP&A and have a sound understanding of what you’re doing and what you’re trying to accomplish, you could still make mistakes along the way. Re-evaluate and revise your plan, as necessary, to ensure that it’s as accurate as possible moving forward. The more times you do this, the more you’ll realize how to avoid similar situations in the future. Excel: Integration vs. Imitation Some modern FP&A software vendors try to solve the limitations of Excel through imitation. But unfortunately, it’s quite the opposite. Many go to great lengths to try and recreate the familiar feel, flexibility and performance of Excel, but they never duplicate the full Excel experience. They almost always require extensive training and a steep learning curve—especially for business users. Features like data integration and version control eliminate many of Excel’s limitations, but the vast majority of users still have a hard time moving past Excel. Most finance professionals have used it their entire careers and will often go out of their way to use what they’re most comfortable with: real, full-featured, flexible Excel. See how a familiar Excel interface led to easier and faster user adoption at Partners in Health. The ideal solution is to combine the best of both worlds by using Excel as a window into a centralized, connected database. This approach enables teams to continue using Excel while adding: a single source of truth, made possible by a centralized database workflow management and automation detailed audit trails user-level permissions and data access levels automated data integration and consolidation full-spectrum FP&A capabilities—from budgeting to account reconciliation to scenario modeling and management reporting (This post covers how to mitigate risk with agile scenario modeling) intuitive, self-serve reporting for every stakeholder group a scalable, secure cloud architecture Using Excel as an end-user interface allows you to connect your existing spreadsheets, templates and models to a central database governed by a sophisticated workflow engine and business rules. As a result, you continue to benefit from Excel’s flexibility and unmatched computing power while doubling down on data integrity, usability, and security. FP&A Best Practices As you learn more about FP&A, you’ll come to find that you can approach it in a variety of ways. However you decide to move forward, follow these best practices to help you evaluate your process and make informed decisions that benefit your organization. 1. Start With a Strategy and End With an Actionable Plan FP&A starts with a strategy, but should end with an actionable plan. This is the plan that guides your organization moving forward. 2. Set Goals and Identify Resources Needed To Reach Them Set short- and long-term goals so that you can identify the resources required to reach them on time. 3. Collect and Review All Applicable Data It’s best to collect and review all applicable data before making key decisions. This saves you from having to redo your work. 4. Identify Who Is Responsible for Which Tasks You must pinpoint who is responsible for each task associated with your plan. Below, we’ll discuss the roles within the FP&A process. 5. Hold People Accountable for Delivering Accountability is a must as it keeps your team on track and everyone working toward reaching the organization’s goals. 6. Monitor Results Don’t assume that your FP&A plan is working. Closely monitor results to track progress and determine where you’re winning and losing. 7. Implement a System for Sharing Data You’ll share data at many stages of the FP&A process. For instance, you may need to request specific numbers from department heads. And as your plan gets up and running, you’ll want to share progress reports. 8. Assess and Make Changes as Necessary Your goal is to create a comprehensive FP&A plan that guides the organization without error. However, there will be times when changes are necessary. Make it a habit to regularly assess your plan and to make changes as necessary. FP&A Benefits Don’t look at financial planning and analysis as an unnecessary necessity. Look at it as something that can greatly improve your company’s financial well-being. Here are some of the many benefits associated with a defined FP&A process: Ensures cohesiveness across the company Drives shareholder value Builds organizational awareness Ensures the proper allocation of resources Provides the tools necessary to reach and exceed financial goals You’ll soon come to realize the power of these benefits among many others. And that’s just what you need to get on board with the importance of financial planning and analysis. FP&A Challenges With Excel While this approach might work great for short-term tasks, it creates a “shadow system” of disconnected spreadsheets with challenges around version control, audit trails, data integrity and other issues—ultimately the same challenges that the FP&A software was implemented to solve in the first place. An offline, disconnected Excel spreadsheet system can show budget owners and management obsolete, inaccurate and competing versions of what should be consistent numbers. Other challenges with Excel include: 1. Manual Data Collection and Consolidation  Companies often export-controlled data from FP&A and other source systems, manually copying and pasting that data into Excel to take advantage of its familiar, intuitive interface. Even if the data was copied and pasted perfectly (which is rarer than it might seem), it’s still a highly inefficient transfer method. 2. Lack of Auditability or Version Control:  Excel lacks a robust built-in mechanism to track changes by cell or user, and it doesn’t offer the ability to revert to a previous version if errors are encountered. The result: questionable data accuracy and integrity. 3. Lack of Process Management Excel cannot track tasks across projects, users and organizations, or the ability to set user-level permissions and access levels. This means it’s nearly impossible to keep track of who’s doing what at any given time. 4. Scalability Excel is a powerful, intuitive and feature-rich program, but one thing it’s not is a database. Trying to combine, analyze or report on large volumes of data in a standalone spreadsheet simply isn’t practical. FP&A Roles Financial planning and analysis teams play a major role in a company’s ability to perform, budget, forecast and analyze with success.  FP&A roles vary from company to company. For example, in a large company with thousands of employees, there may be a countless number of finance professionals responsible for financial planning and analysis. Conversely, in a smaller company—one with only a handful of employees—there may be only one or two people with their hands on the FP&A process. Some of the most common FP&A roles include: FP&A analyst: Gathers data about company financials, develops models and creates summaries. Senior FP&A analyst: Manages FP&A analysts, analyzes data, shares reports with managers and acts as a go-between with other departments. FP&A manager: Focuses a large portion of their time on quality control tasks, running meetings and ensuring that all departments are on the same page. FP&A director (sometimes known as the vice president of FP&A): Presents data to leadership and makes recommendations on how to proceed. Chief financial officer (CFO): Makes final decisions regarding a company's financial operations. Even though some of these roles sound similar, each one has a distinct set of responsibilities. When working together, an FP&A team can account for every task. FP&A Career Paths Are you interested in working as part of a financial planning and analysis team? Are you unsure of how to get started? A basic understanding of the FP&A career path will help you decide where to start and how to move up the career ladder. Financial intern (often while you’re undergraduate or graduate degree) Accountant FP&A analyst Senior FP&A analyst FP&A manager FP&A director (or vice president of FP&A) Chief financial officer (CFO) To decide if FP&A is the right career path, you’ll want to secure an internship. Should you enjoy the work, you can begin your search for a full-time job upon graduation. It generally takes between one and three years of working as an accountant to graduate to an FP&A analyst position. And if you have your eyes set on one day becoming CFO, expect to put in 10+ years to prepare yourself. FP&A Tools FP&A tools are designed to simplify the process, automate tasks and save everyone time—all while preventing mistakes.  There’s no shortage of financial planning and analysis tools to employ. Here are the most common types: Budgeting and Forecasting Here’s an excerpt from our ultimate guide on budgeting and forecasting that explains these two terms: "We already know that budgeting is figuring out how much money your company will need to spend in order to achieve its desired business results. Forecasting, on the other hand, is about proactively analyzing the budget and using both historical and real-time data to predict what those business results will look like." There are FP&A tools to assist with both processes. For example, you can use a tool to collect all required data from applicable departments when creating a budget. Doing this in a centralized location eliminates the risk of data going missing while ensuring that you always have access to current, accurate numbers. Corporate Budgeting Corporate budgeting is a key finance function and it should be treated as such. This is the process of allocating resources to operations to enable their strategies. Just the same as budgeting and forecasting, there are tools to help manage the process. Examples include tools for scenario modeling or zero-based budgeting. CapEx Planning A CapEx planning tool, such as Vena’s CapEx software, allows you to input and manage individual assets by properties such as book value, useful life, residual amount and more. The right tool will help keep your CapEx and annual budgets separate. OpEx Planning OpEx may fit into the same basic category as CapEx, but they’re not one and the same. The right tool allows you to budget for operating expenses without confusing them with capital expenditures.  Find a tool to build workflows for collaborative budgeting and analyze the impact of potential changes with what-if analysis. Allocations With cost allocation software, you can manage your cost centers with real-time allocations, build better budgets and map your overhead allocations based on many variables. The right tool can also help you shorten your month-end close. Cash Flow Planning Cash flow planning empowers you to dive deeper into your data so you can plan with intention across your business. The use of software that facilitates cash flow planning allows you to bring data together from your existing systems into a centralized database. This unified data helps FP&A teams create actionable insights and reports for a collaborative, cross-functional planning process. Revenue Planning The right revenue planning tool can be the difference between a healthy organization and one that’s burning money. The goal is to look for a solution that automatically aggregates data so you can detect issues early, hit your deadlines and execute with confidence. Financial Reporting The key to successful financial reporting is all about having access to the right dashboards. The three types of dashboards you need for financial reporting include: Business health dashboard: Evaluate short- and long-term financial metrics based on your company’s short- and long-term goals. Employee health dashboard: Track employee data such as days off, revenue per employee and more. Customer health dashboard: Measuring how client relationships impact your company’s finances. Financial Dashboards The creation of a financial dashboard provides you with the ability to track finance-related key performance indicators (KPIs) such as operating cash flow, operating expense, current ratio, net profit margin, net profit or EBITDA, sales growth and return on investment. Workforce Planning Workforce planning is the process of analyzing your workforce and using the data collected to forecast and plan for current and future needs. Workforce planning software makes it simple to run reports such as: Compensation report Headcount report Performance report Recruiting report Variance analysis report Scenario Planning Nobody knows what the future will bring, but that doesn’t mean you can’t prepare for any possibility. Scenario planning software helps you understand the potential impact of your current decisions on the future. You can also test potential changes to see how they could affect your company down the road. Learn more about FP&A financial planning software tools and how they stack up against one another. Final Thoughts Cliche as it might seem, the future of financial planning and analysis is now. According to McKinsey & Company, finance departments have become more cost-efficient over the past decade.  The management and consulting firm also noted that finance leaders are “spending a greater portion of their time on value-added activities, such as financial planning and analysis (FP&A), strategic planning, treasury, operational-risk management and policy setting.” And as FP&A evolves, it will continue to take on a larger role within organizations—FP&A will continue to live in finance. But the insight it provides and the stories it tells will inform decisions across—and at the highest levels—of the business. At Vena, we can help you accurately plan for your company’s financial future. Vena Foundation for FP&A is a pre-configured, customizable Excel-based solution that includes data analysis tools, data models, integrations, reports and templates.   Plan For The Future At Vena, we can help you accurately plan for your company’s financial future. Vena Foundation for FP&A is a pre-configured, customizable Excel-based solution that includes data analysis tools, data models, integrations, reports and templates.  

How can you measure the financial efficiency of your organization? Tracking the financial health of your business goes well beyond looking at a profit and loss statement. You need to assess how efficiently you're generating revenues and whether your financial model is sustainable over the long run. That means looking at various metrics to determine how well your business is performing in several key areas. 💡Key Takeaways: Financial efficiency tracks how successful a business is at converting expenses to revenue. A financially efficient business generates revenues without excess expenses—and in a way that can sustain growth over the long term. There are 10 effective metrics for measuring financial effectiveness, including the operating expense ratio, asset turnover ratio, inventory turnover ratio, LTV-CAC ratio, net revenue retention and the Rule of 40. What Is Financial Efficiency—And Why Is It Important? Financial efficiency measures how successful your organization is at turning expenses into revenue. You'll generate fewer profits or even a loss if your expenses become excessive. Having revenue outpace your expenses shows that your organization is financially efficient.  You want your business to be both financially efficient and capable of sustaining growth. Tracking financial efficiency provides valuable insight into how your business is running. The right metrics can tell you where you're doing well and where you need improvement. Unfortunately, there's no single metric you can use to determine your organization's financial efficiency. Instead, use a series of metrics that examine different parts of your business to track the efficiency of those areas. 10 Effective Ways To Track Financial Efficiency The most effective way to measure your organization's financial efficiency is to employ one or more common and easy-to-calculate financial metrics. These metrics are powerful tools that tell you how your organization is doing today and how it can improve to do even better in the future. 1. Operating Expense Ratio One of the most popular ways to measure an organization's financial efficiency is to track the operating expense ratio (OER). This metric measures the cost of operating your business, expressed as a percent of gross revenues. The higher the OER, the less efficient your business is.  To calculate the operating expense ratio, divide your organization's total operating expenses by gross revenues. Keeping a close watch on your OER helps you more accurately forecast your operating budget.   FREE OpEx Template for Excel Plan your operating expenses by category and use our dashboard to compare your expenses across prior year, current year and plan year. 2. Asset Turnover Ratio The next useful way to measure financial efficiency is via the asset turnover ratio (ATR). This metric measures how efficiently an organization generates revenue from its assets by tracking how much each dollar of assets generates. It's expressed as a percentage of an organization's total assets.  To calculate the ATR for your organization, divide your company's total revenues by your total assets. 3. AR Turnover Ratio Although it sounds similar to the asset turnover ratio, the accounts receivable turnover ratio, or AR turnover ratio, measures something quite different. For those businesses that let customers buy on credit, this metric tracks how efficiently you collect payments from your customers. Generally, the higher the AR turnover ratio, the better you are at collecting payments—and the better your customers pay on time.  To calculate the AR turnover ratio, divide your net credit sales by your average accounts receivable. 4. Inventory Turnover Ratio How efficiently does your company manage its inventory? You can find out by measuring the inventory turnover ratio (ITR). The ITR calculates how often your total average inventory has turned over the course of the measuring period. The faster you turn your inventory, the higher the ITR. A high ITR could be good or bad. It could indicate that your sales are so strong that you're constantly turning your inventory. Or it could indicate that your inventory levels are insufficient for your amount of sales. To further complicate matters, ITR differs from industry to industry, so a "good" ITR for one business might be unacceptable to another.  To calculate the inventory turnover ratio, divide your company's cost of goods sold (COGS) by the average inventory value. 5. Customer Acquisition Cost Experts have long held that retaining an existing customer costs less than acquiring a new one. If you're not acquiring new customers, you're not growing your business. And if the cost of acquiring new customers is too high, those new customers will be substantially less profitable than your existing ones. To measure the customer acquisition cost or CAC, divide your marketing campaign costs by the total customers acquired. CAC is typically measured separately for individual campaigns.   FREE Marketing Campaign Report Template for Excel Track your ad spend across platforms, see your top performing campaigns and view your KPIs such as clicks, CPL, MQLs, ROAS and closed won. 6. LTV-CAC Ratio When looking at the return on investment (ROI) per customer, use the LTV-CAC ratio. In this metric, LTV refers to the lifetime value of your customers, which you divide by your average customer acquisition cost (CAC).   The LTV-CAC ratio goes beyond simply examining how much it costs to acquire new customers to analyzing how profitable your new customers are. The higher the LTV-CAC ratio, the more efficient your customer acquisition activities—and the more profitable your new customers become. 7. Sales Efficiency Sales efficiency tracks how efficiently your organization generates sales. It compares sales generated to the sales and marketing costs associated with those sales. The higher your sales efficiency, the higher the rate of return on your sales/marketing investments—and the more successful your business is. You can calculate sales efficiency monthly, quarterly or yearly. Divide your revenue for the period by your sales and marketing costs for that same period. 8. Net Revenue Retention Net revenue retention (NRR) is a way to track customer satisfaction with the products you offer. NRR tracks the percentage of recurring revenue generated from existing customers. The more satisfied your customers, the higher your NRR rate will be. To calculate NRR, start with your monthly recurring revenue (MRR), subtract your contraction MRR and churn MRR (the amount your MRR is decreasing), add your expansion MRR (the amount your MRR is increasing) and divide the whole thing by your starting MRR. Experts say to aim for 120%. 9. Human Capital Efficiency How effective is your organization's headcount planning? Find out by calculating your human capital efficiency. This metric compares your number of employees to the total revenue generated. Since your employees are your largest single expense, it pays to get the most impact from your employees. To measure your human capital efficiency, divide your annual recurring revenue (ARR) by the number of full-time employees. The higher the number, the more efficient and productive your workforce becomes. 10. Rule of 40 The final way to measure your organization's financial efficiency is what experts call the Rule of 40. It gets its name from experts determining that this metric should equal 40% or higher—even though only about one-third of businesses achieve that goal.  The Rule of 40 measures the combined growth and profitability of your company. You calculate it by adding your growth rate to your profit margin. If these total over 40%, your business is financially efficient and well positioned for sustainable growth. Level Up Your Financial Planning and Analysis When you want to improve your organization's financial efficiency, turn to Vena, the only native Excel Complete Planning platform built for Microsoft 365 with Power BI Embedded. With Vena, you get better control over your business operations and can make better-informed strategic decisions in the future. FREE Financial Excel Templates Jumpstart your plan to grow with our library of free financial Excel templates. Templates are available to everyone—all you need to get started is a copy of Microsoft Excel.

Learning how to calculate the return on investment (ROI) for your information technology (IT) systems projects is a financial skill that helps you prove the business case for your idea. Modeling the ROI on IT investments benefits multiple levels of employees, from entry-level employees to managers and executives. Employees can use ROI projections to justify a project they’re interested in pursuing, while an executive can use these calculations to sort through potential projects. Choosing to pursue one IT project over another can alter the course of your business–you want to ensure you have all the necessary data to make that decision. Calculating the ROI can help. 💡Key Takeaways: An ROI calculation allows executives to evaluate the effectiveness of a new IT system or investment. When done correctly, you can use ROI to measure returns and evaluate employee performance. The ROI projection justifies your project’s cost to the financial team. Helping the business team evaluate the costs and benefits of the project builds buy-in. You may perform both an anticipated and actual ROI calculation. The anticipated ROI uses estimated costs and revenues to project potential returns, while the actual ROI uses final costs and revenues after a project’s completion. Calculating ROI on IT Projects You can express return on investment as either anticipated or actual. Each serves a different function. Anticipated ROI helps you determine whether a project is worth pursuing, while actual ROI compares whether the completed project is aligned with expectations.  To calculate the ROI of an IT project, you can use this basic formula: Source: Magora Systems When calculating anticipated ROI, playing with the numbers and running several scenarios is beneficial. Using multiple factors allows you to account for unexpected costs that emerge during development. With this range of potential outcomes, you can evaluate a project’s risk to see if it’s truly worth it. The higher the ROI, the more justifiable your project is.  For example, say you have an ROI of 200% over an implementation period of three years. This value means that you’ll double your project investment over that period.  If the ROI is minuscule—or even negative—then the business justification for the project isn’t there. When considering implementing multiple IT projects or modernizing an old infrastructure, it’s worthwhile to determine the ROI for each project and begin with the most profitable.  Categories of IT projects where the ROI formula is beneficial to include: Replacing outdated hardware, such as computer monitors or other consumables  Projects required for regulatory or compliance costs  Projects with intangible benefits, such as increasing consumer goodwill  Short-term maintenance projects Cumming Corp. Generates 255% ROI After 6 Months Discover how—with Vena—the international project and cost management consulting firm reduced their budgeting cycle by 50% and accelerated their reporting cycle from four weeks to just one day after month-end close. Calculating ROI: Benefits and Challenges When calculating an IT project’s ROI, you may derive the net profits from one of several categories: Cost reduction or avoidance: An IT project may reduce work travel (i.e., virtual meetings or remote tech support), increase employee productivity and decrease technology maintenance costs. Capital reduction or avoidance: Similarly, an IT project may lower costs for systems such as data servers or cloud storage and entirely prevent the need for new data centers. Increase revenue: A project that creates a new service or enhances an existing one enables your business to upsell clients on your new capability. Non-financial benefits: IT projects also provide intangible benefits such as improved customer and user satisfaction, improved business processes, better forecasting capabilities and improved data input. Source: freevo Determining an IT project’s ROI also has a few pitfalls to avoid. For example, it’s impossible to estimate a project’s costs and benefits with a high degree of accuracy in every circumstance. This is why it’s imperative to forecast the ROI in several data-based scenarios.  Similarly, a project’s expected benefits may result from a combination of planned IT improvements. Be careful to avoid this kind of double counting.  To avoid these pitfalls, your ROI calculations should include the following parameters: Consistency: The assumptions you use in your ROI calculations should be the same for each type of IT project. For example, inflation and tax rates should remain stable (except for the rare circumstances when inflation rises).  Timeframe: Most IT hardware systems and other technology become obsolete after three years, while software projects usually last five years.  Precision: The dollar figures used in your calculation should be accurate, but there should be wiggle room. An overly precise estimate could hurt your credibility if the project has a lower ROI, for instance. The 3 Steps To Determine ROI The ROI formula requires determining costs and profits, then comparing a project’s ROI in different scenarios. 1. Determine Costs The cost of a project includes not only the upfront investment but also implementation costs (e.g., project management, software, training, etc.) and operating costs (e.g., cloud services, hardware and licensing). 2. Estimate Profits It’s more difficult to forecast profits than to estimate initial costs. Considerations include reduced operating costs, improved software or logistics programs, improved or automated services and improved data entry processes. 3. Compare Results Calculate ROI for a project using several different factual scenarios. You might also compare the ROI of different IT projects to prioritize which comes first. Other Value-Based Calculations In addition to ROI, other calculations help you make data-based decisions regarding IT projects. Each of these calculations complements the ROI by providing further metrics you can use to select a project. For example: Net Present Value (NPV): This shows a project’s profitability over time. NPV represents the difference between the present value of cash on hand and “the present value of cash outflows over time.” Unlike ROI, NPV determines the time value of money. If the calculation results in a number greater than 0, the project will likely produce value.  Break-Even Point (or Payback Period): The break-even point shows when your investment will begin to pay for itself. The shorter the payback period, the less risky the project.  Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): While the TCO doesn’t necessarily inform the riskiness of a project, it does show the overall cost of owning and operating your investment. Are You Getting ROI on Your Finance IT Investments? Enhance your finance process management and finance technological infrastructure with Vena Complete Planning.

Like most businesses, you likely have determined financial targets to measure your company’s profitability along with a plan of action for how to achieve these goals. However, have you planned for unforeseen events that could pose a risk to your success? This is where scenario planning steps come in—the projection technique using scenario planning analysis you likely already incorporate into your long-term planning. This process has been created to look for adaptable solutions to unavoidable circumstances that can negatively impact your financial health. The scenario planning process identifies potential outcomes and visualizes both risks and opportunities that come along with these possible events. And the good thing is, it has various available templates and formalized frameworks. 💡 Key Takeaways: Start by identifying your key business issue, question, or decision. Pinpoint your internal and external factors. Keep your factors and scenarios simple. Narrow your list of determinants to the most critical in order to compile and focus on the 3-5 most probable scenarios. The 4 Steps of the Scenario Planning Process Scenario planning is key for forecasting and strategic planning, addressing various uncertainties that can exist within a business environment and how to respond to them. Utilizing this tool can help you respond quickly to changes in the market, crises and other unforeseen issues. The following are the typical steps you would take in the scenario planning process: 1. Determine Your Key Business Decision The very first step in the scenario planning process is to identify your key business issue, question or decision that you will be evaluating. For example, you may want to take a look at how market trends might affect your bottom line or the financial risks that may come with future business investment. 2. Identify Internal and External Factors That Can Affect Your Key Decision Every key decision made by you will have both internal and external factors that will impact its outcome. This is where you need to pinpoint what drives your business operations, which can include your suppliers, customers, competitors, employees, shareholders and government regulations among others.  These important factors each have a specific role they play in your business and can impede operations in different ways. For example, if a supplier is late with a shipment and your entire manufacturing process is held up because of it, how does this affect your key decision? Completing a comprehensive assessment of these factors will allow you to prepare for every possible event. 3. Outline Your Strategy for Each Potential Scenario This step in the scenario planning process focuses on mapping out each scenario from your list from its beginning to its logical end. If a critical determinant goes one way or the other, how will you respond? What are the steps that you will take? How does this determinant impact the project? How does it impact your overall business? Keep asking yourself these types of questions in order to tell the entire story of your most probable scenarios. From there, you will be able to create response strategies if one of these scenarios should occur. This is where scenario planning and analysis tools can help. 4. Identify the Early Indicators of Each Scenario The final step in the scenario planning process is to identify each probable scenario’s earliest signs. Doing so will provide you with valuable insight into the future, allowing you to quickly pivot when a potential scenario occurs. FREE What-If Analysis Template for Excel Try our Financial Modeling Template to model different monthly forecasting scenarios and view variances between forecasted inputs and scenario models. How To Make the Scenario Planning Process More Effective There are things you can do to make the traditional scenario planning steps even more effective. Let’s take a look at how you can enhance the scenario planning process in times like these, where uncertainty is heightened. 1. Keep Your Scenarios Simple While you may be able to come up with a list of dozens—or even hundreds—of internal and external factors that have the potential to disrupt your key decision’s outcome, understanding the most critical determinants will prevent you from getting overwhelmed. Narrow down your list of determinants in order to compile the most probable scenarios. Focusing on three to five scenarios will provide you with the most reliable predictions that your team can use for the next step in the scenario planning process. 2. Utilize a Multi-Dimensional Scope In a modern business environment, you have to stay agile in order to be able to respond to any uncertainties that may arise. That’s why it is crucial that your scenario planning process be performed on all levels of your organization. Such a comprehensive analysis will allow for strategic information to cascade down your business's operations in a timely manner, ultimately ensuring all stakeholders can respond quickly to whatever scenario occurs. It also ensures that if a change is made within one vertical of the business, the corresponding determinant can be adjusted so key stakeholders and decision-makers can better understand the overall impact of this change on the forecast. Consequently, this will lead to an overall more accurate scenario planning process. Integrate Scenario Planning Tools Into Your Process The traditional scenario planning process, filled with human errors and tedious data entry, was not efficient or nimble. Thankfully, there are scenario planning tools available that easily integrate into existing processes and platforms such as Excel. Vena’s Scenario Analysis Software enables you to aggregate live data into a singular accessible dashboard, with real-time updates as new data becomes available. You can more easily analyze the impact of changes to your key decisions such as revenue, headcount, cash flow—and more—in just a few minutes. Moving Beyond Traditional Forecasting With Effective Scenario Planning Long forecasting periods and lengthy lists of uncertainties make traditional forecasting methods slow and outdated. In modern businesses, there are so many uncertainties beyond our control, which means that we need scenario planning processes that can keep pace. Leveraging the best practices and tools for scenario planning will enable you to make informed business decisions in a proactive manner. Mitigate Risk With Agile Scenario Modeling Learn how Vena Complete Planning can help you design a plan that will help your company see the drivers of change so you can create strategic and flexible long-term plans.

Every business has a corporate financial planning process. However, the scope and efficacy of those financial plans can vary greatly from business to business based on a wide range of factors. The perfection of your corporate financial planning is about having strong principles and adopting new tools that give you the power to optimize your plan for greater effectiveness and efficiency. In this blog, we’ll explore some of the larger financial planning themes you should consider for your business from top to bottom. Key Takeaways: Corporate financial planning can benefit from connectedness among your short-, mid- and long-term plans. Consider available FP&A solutions that can enhance your data integration, forecasting and budgeting with greater detail and accuracy. Give your financial reporting and planning proper context by knowing the business story that drives the numbers. Create opportunities for collaboration on financial planning between decision makers and the teams that administer it through operations. Continually monitor for ways to evolve your plan as your company grows and business dynamics change. Connect Your Short-, Mid- and Long-Term Corporate Financial Planning Your current financial planning for your business likely incorporates three different levels of budgeting and forecasting: short-term, mid-term and long-term. For corporate FP&A teams, connecting and understanding the relationships between these three levels of planning is key for fine-tuning your process. While these planning phases may focus on different metrics and periods, it's important to understand how they relate and inform each other. Short-term decisions should always consider how it advances or deters your business's long-term visions. Conversely, you should allow space for your short- and mid-term data to help inform the long-term planning for your organization. Companies can struggle to connect the three phases of their financial planning because of the siloed nature of traditional planning processes and latency in their data reporting. The more you can connect the dots between your short- and long-term goals, the more resilient and effective your business's financial plan will be. This also leads to another method for perfecting your corporate financial planning process: integration of FP&A solutions. Integrate FP&A Solutions for Better Financial Forecasting Perhaps the biggest challenge corporations face when improving their financial planning is adopting the FP&A solutions that provide more beneficial datasets, which leads to more informed planning. FP&A software solutions can enhance your planning process in several essential ways, regardless of the size of your company: Reduce the delays in generating basic financial and operational date reports thanks to APIs and other tech features that allow systems to speak to each other. Tap into operational datasets that give your financial data and forecasting better context. Improve short-term financial planning by seeing current figures that allow you to make better daily, weekly and quarterly decisions about using resources. Give your FP&A team more time to focus on strategic planning rather than data entry and administrative tasks. Improve transparency between financial reporting and future planning decisions. Source: Kissflow  Know the Business Story That Drives Your Budget and Finance Decisions Acquiring FP&A software to enhance the utility of your financial planning process will widen your options for understanding the story behind the numbers. You will have access to information that does a better job of blending the financial reporting with critical context from business operation data. The context from your business story is effectively the "why" behind all the different figures, ratios, KPIs and other metrics you use to evaluate the current state of your company. The "why" can often be found through correlating different datasets and being able to find trends or patterns. You can better adjust expectations to reflect reality more closely through this process. In other words, you'll know when a deviation in your budget or other forecasting represents a single-event anomaly versus when it is part of a larger systemic issue within your business operation. FREE Financial Excel Templates Jumpstart your plan to grow with our library of free financial Excel templates. Templates are available to everyone—all you need to get started is a copy of Microsoft Excel. Don't Be Afraid To Adjust Your Plan When the KPIs Say So Having great swaths of financial and institutional information won't help you during various planning levels unless you are willing to act upon it. Some CFOs and FP&A teams fall quiet when it comes to the strategy side of financial planning because their focus has traditionally been on data compilation.   Improve Communication of Financial Planning to Key Employees and Teams The financial planning process for businesses can sometimes struggle with having an open dialogue between the decision makers (e.g., the C-suite and board) and the key employees, managers and others who will implement their plan. Similar to how your different planning periods need to inform each other, so do your decisions and the people who administer them. You need to create opportunities for your various departments to provide input on the financial plan to better understand how choices will impact your teams' operations on the ground. Source: Revive Land Group Think About How Your Corporate Financial Planning Process Will Evolve Over Time The corporate financial planning process is not a static experience. Your job only begins once you establish an initial framework of reports, forecasts and budgets for various time intervals. Beyond this base planning process, you must consider how your plan will evolve over time. Regardless of your company's size and stage of growth, you and your finance leaders need to keep an eye on the future for new angles, metrics and ideas to further perfect your plan. Remember, the purpose of gathering financial and operational data (and creating a corresponding plan) is to evaluate how your business is doing and to set goals for its improvement. Some signals that it may be time for new additions or evolutions to your corporate financial plan include: You have new sources of revenue. Expansion or contraction of capital allocation or other operations (e.g., hiring, new locations, etc.). Awareness of new influences on your business operations (e.g., competitors, broader market conditions, etc.). Meet With a Vena Representative About Our FP&A Solutions Vena is committed to helping businesses Plan To Grow™. Our intelligent solutions help companies across many industries optimize their financial planning processes. The design of our software compliments FP&A teams in their use of Excel with data integrations, automation of workflow tasks and the ability to scale as your company grows. Excel at More With Vena Check out how Vena Complete Planning can power your Plan To Grow™.

With volatile market conditions, slim interest margins and a race to deliver digital products and services, it's time for FP&A digital transformation in the banking and credit union industry. Legacy on-premise budgeting solutions or simple spreadsheets create siloed data, endless folders full of Excel spreadsheets, outdated historical data and pose risks to compliance and data security. As a result, FP&A professionals spend a lot of time chasing after numbers instead of analyzing them, hampering their ability to drive agile planning and timely, strategic decision-making. Between 2010 to 2019, there was very little change in the amount of time spent gathering data and administering the FP&A process (77% vs. 75%) and the amount of time spent providing value-added analysis (23% vs. 25%). In the post-pandemic world where prime rates and even business models can change overnight, banks and credit unions need to decide if they want to survive with the status quo or thrive with quick and accurate decision-making capabilities. For many, the answer will be clear: It's time to invest in an FP&A and extended planning solution for banking and credit unions that will build resilience, agility and executional alignment into financial as well as operational planning processes. This guide will outline best practices for modernizing core FP&A and extended planning processes to help your bank or credit union choose the right solution built for and owned by finance teams in financial services. Best Practice 1: Connect Financial and Operational Data To Eliminate Silos and Create a Complete View of the Business Accurate, timely planning and decision making starts with the right data. Unfortunately, banking data is often stored across a variety of separate systems, including core banking, enterprise resource planning (ERP), general ledger (GL), asset liability management (ALM), funds transfer pricing (FTP), human resource information systems (HRIS) and fixed asset systems. If your bank or credit union has grown through acquisition or completed a recent merger, you may have multiple versions of each system, compounding the challenge. To cut down on time spent gathering and administering data from all these different sources, start by integrating them all into a single source of truth. This single, central data model should contain all the data you need to facilitate your financial planning, analysis and reporting processes in one place—no chasing required. Best Practice 2: Automate Your Workflow Management Processes To Make Time for Analysis and Collaboration FP&A professionals can't afford to be spending their time manually tracking tasks, managing team member progress and verifying the accuracy of their data. Not only are these manual processes tedious and inefficient, they are error-prone and often result in a lot of unnecessary back and forth. To refocus time on high-value activities while keeping workflows on track, automate processes such as emailing out spreadsheets, manually aggregating spreadsheet data and following up with people. When you automate workflow management with an FP&A and extended planning solution, your team can spend more time analyzing and collaborating with increased confidence in the accuracy of their data and plans. Best Practice 3: Incorporate Scenario Planning Into Your Process To Be Agile and Prepared for Change With intense pressure to react to real-time market indicators, FP&A teams are under strain to analyze "what-if" solutions in hours rather than days or months. To quickly adapt to market changes, enable scenario planning within your planning templates and say goodbye to countless and disconnected Excel models. Connected scenario planning capabilities support fast, agile changes to key drivers such as prime rates so that you can see immediate impacts on margins and profitability. To facilitate better what-if and scenario analysis, leverage an FP&A and extended planning solution that supports multiple versions of plans. This way, your bank or credit union will never be caught off guard by a rate adjustment—or a pandemic—ever again. Olympia Federal Savings and Vena With Vena, the community bank cut budget consolidation times by 50%, generated net interest margin forecasts on demand and accelerated monthly financial reporting to 30 minutes. Best Practice 4: Use Pre-Configured Logic and Templates Built for Banking and Credit Unions To Quickly Start Driving Agility and Growth Banking and credit unions have unique planning and regulatory needs—but most planning systems aren't built with banks and credit unions in mind. A one-size-fits-all financial planning system usually only offers basic budgeting modules, even though banking financials are anything but rudimentary. A complete planning platform owned and operated by finance can help you manage key banking indicators, such as interest rate assumptions, calculation logic and run-on/off planning across your portfolio of lending and deposit products. With a complete planning solution pre-configured for banks and credit unions, you can leap ahead of the competition who are struggling to make generic solutions fit complex banking logic. Best Practice 5: Support Your Team With Software Everyone Will Want To Use To Plan With Intention Across the Business Move away from centralized budgeting and get users from across the organization involved in planning to help increase accuracy and accountability. To get everyone engaged, use an FP&A and extended planning solution that connects data, processes and people in a way your team wants to work. If onboarding and change management is too complicated, your team won't trust the solution, or use it, and will resort to using their own offline, disconnected Excel models. Maximize engagement and ROI by selecting an FP&A and extended planning solution that is user-friendly, intuitive and has everything your team needs to get on board. More FP&A and Extended Planning Criteria To Consider for Digital Transformation for Banking and Credit Unions In addition to the five best practices for FP&A and extended planning solutions, here are a few more features and tips to consider to make the right choice. Presentation Power Review dashboards and decision-ready reporting capabilities to ensure you’ll have all the insights needed to make quick and accurate decisions. Onboarding Process Make sure you can get the solution up and running quickly—without a lengthy setup—and that it’s easy for users to adopt. Ability To Scale The right solution should grow with your bank or credit union. Can it support other business processes or will you need multiple-point solutions for complete planning? FP&A Processes for Banks and Credit Unions (Made Easy) See how Vena’s Pre-Configured Solution for Banks and Credit Unions integrates all the templates, data models, source system data and business logic needed to meet your organization's specific business and industry requirements.

The banking landscape is more challenging than ever before, with factors such as increasingly tight margins, escalating customer demands and fierce competition at play. Plus, as interest rates continue to fluctuate, finance leaders are under pressure to lead the charge in searching for new and innovative ways to fund growth. Why Agile Financial Planning Is Critical to Banks and Credit Unions In 2020, 50% of consumers interacted with their bank through mobile apps or websites at least once a week, compared to 32% in 2018. With bank interactions moving online in today's post-pandemic world, the race is on to deliver the right mix of digital banking products—despite the price tag of new development projects. Banks that can’t keep up with customer expectations risk losing market share to newer, nimble players who are unrestrained by the costs of transforming legacy systems. To meet immediate operational needs and set the groundwork to achieve future goals, banks need an accurate view of all their financial data and the ability to quickly shift plans based on profitability, capital demands and market conditions. However, to unlock this agility and gain a competitive advantage, banks will first need to solve four key challenges: Challenge 1: Staying on Top of Actuals and Profitability Changing economic conditions have forced banks to increase interest rates, cutting into profit margins. In 2020 alone, U.S. bank profits fell 36.5% from the prior year. For regional banks with smaller loan portfolios, it can be especially challenging to maintain industry-standard profitability when approximately two-thirds of their revenue comes from interest income. In 2020, U.S. bank profits fell 36.5% from the prior year. To gain an accurate view of profitability, data needs to align across departments, branches and lines of business. But, product-level data is often spread across core banking, enterprise resource planning (ERP), asset liability management (ALM) and other source systems, making product profitability analysis challenging. Between ERP, ALM, general ledger (GL) and human resource information system (HRIS) data, it can be impossible to find the numbers needed to keep everything in check. And when margins are slim, there is little room for error.   Challenge 2: Adapting to Customer Demands While fluctuating interest rates are slashing innovation budgets, customers are driving demand for new digital banking products and experiences. According to a survey by the Boston Consulting Group conducted in 2020, 24% of consumers planned to use bank branches less—or stop visiting them altogether—after the pandemic. 24% of survey respondents plan to use bank branches less or stop visiting them at all after the pandemic. With this in mind, it's clear that banks need to respond with next-generation online banking products and services or risk losing market share. Studies show customers are willing to switch banks for better digital products—31.4% of local and regional bank customers would be at least "somewhat likely" to switch to a bank that offered a better mobile card app. In the race to meet customer expectations, finance teams can’t afford to be spending time on operational tasks like manual data consolidation and reconciliation. Instead, their time should be spent strategically planning and forecasting to make sure they can cover operating costs while funding digital transformation projects. Unfortunately for many banks, siloed legacy systems and ad-hoc integrations slow down innovation. But in today's increasingly competitive environment, seamlessly connected data is needed to transform both the front-end and back-end of consumer digital banking experiences. Olympia Federal Savings and Vena With Vena, the community bank cut budget consolidation times by 50%, generated net interest margin forecasts on demand and accelerated monthly financial reporting to 30 minutes. Challenge 3: Improving Stakeholder Collaboration The impact of fluctuating interest rates on net interest margins and the growing technology costs tied to the development of digital products are adding to the pressure for banks to consolidate through mergers and acquisitions. Regional consolidation can quickly boost a bank’s deposit rate, while cross-country consolidation can help mitigate risks tied to the economic markets in any particular area. With scale and cost savings, consolidated banks can improve profitability. But consolidation has its own complications. Branches scattered across various geographies and grappling with disparate data issues need to be able to analyze numbers in one place while meeting different regional regulatory requirements. In addition to creating one single source of truth across disparate systems, banks also need to create new processes to work together to get the right data to the right stakeholders in the right way—and in a timely manner.   Challenge 4: Adapting to Changing Market Conditions So what happens the next time there’s a crisis? One of the biggest lessons to take away from the turbulent times we've experienced over the past couple of years is that banks need to be primed and ready to manage change. As we've seen, conditions can shift overnight—from interest rates to regulatory requirements and even entire business models. Banks need to be ready to react to preserve everyday business operations and business continuity. According to Accenture research, when firms are agile, they are more than twice as likely than the average organization to achieve top-quartile financial performance (55% versus 25%). Agile firms are more than twice as likely as the average organization to achieve top-quartile financial performance (55% versus 25%). To prepare for change, scenario planning is key. For example, financial teams should be able to make fast, nimble changes to key drivers—like forecasted prime rates—so they can see immediate impacts on margins and profitability. By considering different possibilities for the future, banks can become more resilient and less susceptible to costly business interruptions.   How Banks and Credit Unions Can Achieve Financial Planning Agility With Vena  Vena for Banks and Credit Unions gives your finance team complete planning and analysis capabilities within one platform built to meet the unique challenges of the banking industry. Access Real-Time Insights To Improve Decision-Making Accuracy Set up your finance team to drive timely, data-driven business decisions without all the manual effort. Vena connects your source systems and automates data integrations to help finance teams back up business plans with accurate, real-time data from all relevant sources. Focus on Innovation To Enable Growth Free up your team's time to focus on strategy—not reporting. Vena integrates your GL, Core Banking, ALM and FTP data sources into one source of truth so that finance teams can stop chasing after the details and look ahead at the bigger picture instead. Streamline Workflows To Enhance Collaboration Set up your finance team to drive timely, data-driven business decisions without all the manual effort. Vena connects your source systems and automates data integrations to help finance teams back up business plans with accurate, real-time data from all relevant sources. Become Resilient To Adapt to Changing Market Conditions Create best and worst-case insights using what-if and scenario modeling capabilities. Vena connects your models, so you can plan for any scenario using rolling forecasts, driver-based forecasting and top-down forecasting.   Financial Planning for Banks Made Easy Learn how Vena’s pre-configured solution built for banks and credit unions integrates all the templates, data models, source system data and business logic needed to meet your organization's specific business and industry requirements.

You’re a director or manager of finance. You know how much work you have on your plate. You also know what’s coming down the pipeline. And for those reasons, you can’t shake the feeling that financial workflow automation could be the answer to many of your challenges.  Here are just a handful of the many benefits of workflow automation: Reduced labor costs Increased efficiency of task management Improved communication between team members throughout the company Increased scalability of workflows Improved accountability You get the point. There’s no shortage of benefits. Financial workflow automation has the power to turn your company upside down—in a good way, of course. While you may have automated some financial tasks to date, there’s a good chance you’ve come up short in other areas. Let’s review four financial workflows you haven’t thought to automate, but should, as soon as possible. Budget Approvals Think about how much time you spend on budget approvals. This process spans every department, from sales to marketing to customer service. Every day, week and/or month, you receive expense requests from every nook and cranny of your company. Without timely budget approvals, some departments may suffer. The problem with this is that the budget approval process is traditionally lengthy and complicated. And not because the process is difficult to understand. It’s a result of how many people have their hands on the process.  Outlining the budget approval process sounds like a simple solution, but all that does is add more steps and stress. By automating the budget approval process, you can: Define steps that every person and department must take to obtain approval Pull all pertinent information into one central location Keep records of budget approval requests, decisions and contributions made by all parties Finally, you can add parameters as to the types of requests that you automate. For example, budget requests of $5K or less go through one process while those that are more than $5K require manual verification and approval. Expense Reimbursement Just the same as budget approvals, expense reimbursements have a way of piling up. And if you wait too long to process them, you’ll also have an angry group of employees who are wondering when they’ll get their money back. With a traditional approach, employees will submit reimbursement forms via email or maybe even in person. Both of these are inefficient as you’re not collecting forms in a central location. Expense reimbursement automation can be as simple as the following: Activate the reimbursement process with a single trigger, such as the submission of the required form(s) Automatically send requests to predetermined personnel for approval, based on conditions such as department and reimbursement amount Set notifications to keep the employee informed as to where their request stands The key to a successful expense reimbursement system is to collect the necessary forms in the same manner, every time. And that’s exactly what happens when you create an automated system. Invoice Management Does your company purchase products or services from vendors? If so, an automated invoice management system can eliminate headaches, save you time and ensure that your vendors get paid in full and on time. For many companies, invoice management means receiving invoices from vendors—typically via email or mail—passing them off to the accounts payable department and paying them one at a time. Automated invoice management is the new way of doing things. Here’s how it works: Request that vendors submit invoices in a specified manner, such as email Activate the workflow with a trigger, such as receiving an invoice via email from a vendor Automatically send requests to the proper individuals or departments for approval Alert the vendor as to the stage of the process, such as “invoice received” and “processing” Automatically update invoice status, such as unpaid, processing or paid Invoice management requires automation. Even if you only receive a handful of invoices each month, automating the process will benefit both you and your vendors. Fixed Asset Purchases Fixed asset purchases are difficult to track as these vary by cost, the requesting party and the number of people required for approval. For example, depending on the department or amount, there may be a specific person who needs to sign off on the approval. Traditionally, fixed asset purchases worked like this: A department or employee files an initial request All involved parties communicate on matters such as the need to purchase the asset, the vendor and ways to save money, among other details Final approval (or denial) is given Now, let’s think about what happens if you automate the asset purchase workflow: Requesting parties are given a central location for submitting purchase proposals All applicable and required information is collected from the requestor before it reaches the review stage Approval is streamlined since all information is collected upfront With this approach, there’s no back and forth communication. Instead, the requester shares the information needed to make the decision and it’s immediately routed to the person staffed with reviewing it. You can add as many variables as you want, such as requiring special approval for purchases over a specific dollar amount. Summary Financial workflow automation is every bit as powerful as it sounds. The more tasks you automate, the easier it is to take advantage of benefits such as reduced costs, time savings and enhanced communication. Are you ready to get started?  Automate Your Financial Workflows Learn how workflow automation can take your operation to the next level from an experienced workflow automation expert.

No matter how in tune you are with your business and industry, there’s no way of knowing what the future will bring. The best thing you can do is prepare for anything and everything, thus allowing you to take immediate and effective action. And that’s where scenario planning comes into play. Scenario planning—also known as scenario modeling and scenario analysis—is a method of financial planning that enables you to prepare for various circumstances, mitigate risk and better position your organization for future financial stability. Here’s an excerpt from a post on our blog that explains how scenario planning works and why it’s important: “Whether you’re encountering seismic market shifts, entering a new geographic market or making changes to a line of business (LOB), scenario modeling can help you build agile models that allow you to assess the impact of your business plans on revenue, costs and cash flow.” Now that we have the basics out of the way, let’s turn our attention to the five types of scenario planning tools to help you succeed. 1. Scenario Analysis Software You can’t talk about scenario planning tools without a strong focus on scenario analysis software. This is where it all starts, as this type of software is designed specifically for scenario planning—nothing else. At Vena, our agile scenario modeling software is designed to help your company mitigate risk by staying ahead of change. The decisions you make today will have an impact on your future. And that’s why scenario planning is so important. A simple mistake at the present could cost your company time, money and/or personnel down the line. For example, our instant “what-if” analysis is based on real-time actuals and business drivers. Use scenario modeling software to better understand the impact of changes to revenue, cash flow and employee headcount among other important details—all in one platform. 2. Customer Relationship Management Software (CRM) A big part of scenario planning is based on your company’s current financial circumstances, short and long-term goals and the potential impact of both internal and external factors.  When it comes to effective scenario planning, sales volume data from your CRM can help you answer questions such as: What were company sales over the last quarter?  What historic sales trends have you noticed? Are they likely to continue to the future? What’s the likelihood of a major event within your industry having an extreme impact—positive or negative—on sales? Customer relationship management software can do more than maintain a database of prospects and customers. It can also be a valuable addition to your scenario planning toolkit when used appropriately.  If you’re not sold on your current CRM, there’s no shortage of options to consider. Search for one that will integrate with your scenario analysis software and other tools.  3. Marketing Automation System There are a variety of ways to use a marketing automation system. If you’ve yet to consider how it can assist with scenario planning, there’s never been a better time to do so. Regardless of the marketing automation system you choose, it can assist you with many aspects of scenario planning such as: Identifying what is and isn't working to keep the pipeline full Pinpointing the marketing campaigns and channels that are driving the highest ROI Pinpointing the marketing campaigns and channels that you should discontinue Calculating future marketing budgets The way you market your company’s products and/or services today probably won’t be the same as in the future. Through the use of a marketing automation system, you can effectively plan for various scenarios that could come to light.  4. Human Resource Information System One year your company’s headcount is slowly growing. The next year it takes a massive leap forward. And unfortunately, you may even find that your headcount is declining.  A human resource information system (HRIS) can power important decisions related to hiring and firing practices, benefits, onboarding, training as well as payroll to name a few.  Every department within your company will evolve with time, but none change as often and as much as human resources. There are always employees on the go, training to schedule, benefits to update and interviews to conduct.  Without effective scenario planning—powered by the right software—human resources has a greater potential of falling behind. A problem here can reverberate throughout your entire organization.  5. Recruiting and Retention Software Recruiting and retention software goes hand in hand with a human resource information system. The primary difference is that this software focuses solely on recruiting new talent and retaining current employees. Not only is this crucial to the current well-being of your company, but it has a giant impact on the future. For instance, you can bring the best talent in the industry into your company, but if you don’t know how to retain your team, it’s all for nothing. In fact, a poor employee retention rate will lead to increased onboarding and training costs.  Motivosity is one of the many available software applications for recruiting, retaining and engaging employees. You can use it alongside scenario planning to address questions including: What is your company and/or departmental turnover? What is the average cost of onboarding and training an employee? What is the financial impact of a key employee leaving a department?  Plan for Today and Tomorrow If you have these five types of tools in your scenario planning toolkit, there’s no reason to fall behind in this area. You can take full control of scenario planning and analysis, which helps with everything from finances to operations to employee benefits. With Vena, you’re able to work within a native Excel interface that you’re already comfortable using. This makes for a more streamlined and stress-free transition into scenario planning. We’ll help you better understand how our platform can integrate with your favorite spreadsheet software for your varying scenario planning needs. Contact us to schedule a product demo Are You Ready To Take Action?