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. 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.  

This blog was first published in 2019 and updated on July 20, 2022. Financial planning and analysis, or FP&A, is one of the most important resources at the disposal of any senior manager. Well-run modern FP&A will give decision makers instant access to an overview of risks and opportunities for the organization, as well as analysis at the most granular level of individual departments. Knowing the actuals and future trends of the organization gives management the closest thing to a crystal ball for guiding their firm. With the rise of advanced analytic techniques and higher demands for data, senior managers and FP&A professionals are feeling the heat to deliver insights that provide useful information – and direct action. Unfortunately, several barriers stand in the way, including:   Knowing the actuals and future trends of the organization gives management the closest thing to a crystal ball for guiding their firm. With the rise of advanced analytic techniques and higher demands for data, senior managers and FP&A professionals are feeling the heat to deliver insights that provide useful information – and direct action. Unfortunately, several barriers stand in the way, including: Manual processes: Spreadsheets have long required people to take data the “final mile,” relying on manual data entry or copy-paste exercises. Unfortunately, people are prone to error. Entering data in the incorrect field or cutting instead of copying data – small mistakes can lead to bad numbers, causing senior managers to make decisions based on bad information. Plus, fixing these errors is costly and time-intensive, taking away from time that could be better spent elsewhere.   Multiple data sources: Too often, data is siloed, spread across multiple departments and multiple software systems. This can make data reconciliation difficult, and with multiple sources, the integrity of the data itself can be called into question: who has the true, final data set?   Data is difficult to visualize and share across departments: Legacy systems make it difficult for finance professionals to share data with stakeholders, and don’t offer solutions to create clear, easy-to-read visualizations.   Rigid or incomplete software: Many FP&A tools currently have a very strict framework that require IT assistance or technical expertise to make changes. And while some modern software might have advanced functionality, it often only covers a small fraction of the needs of finance departments. This can lead to shadow spreadsheet systems, additional software that operates behind the scenes to complete tasks that lie outside of the main “solution’s” capabilities. A lack of consistency: FP&A processes should remain consistent from day to day. This helps to ensure more accurate analysis and forecasting. Furthermore, consistent processes make it easier for people outside the financing department to share data, such as department heads. While FP&A processes are tried and true, many of the constituent parts are trapped in the past. Fortunately, modern FP&A software has taken giant leaps forward to solve these problems. Financial Planning and Analysis: Tools and Use Cases Modern financial planning is an art and a science. FP&A professionals gather information, build data models and transform information into clear reports that drive strategy and business decisions. In reality, FP&A teams can find themselves limited by the tools at their disposal. Rigid software, incomplete data and inaccurate reports can slow down the process and impede a company’s growth. It’s frustrating, sure – but more importantly, it keeps finance professionals from doing the analysis that’s necessary to drive organizational change. Excel The go-to tool for finance departments around the world is Microsoft Excel. It makes sense. It’s easy to use and easy to learn. It’s invaluable for analyzing multiple data sets and performing powerful calculations, and it allows for ad hoc analysis without the need for a degree in computer science. Of course, Excel is not without its limitations. Version control can be difficult to manage, particularly with large data sets or numbers that change quickly. And Excel has difficulty with source system integration, process management and clear audit trails. Modern FP&A software solutions aim to tackle a number of these pain points. By offering cloud-based FP&A platforms, the best solutions are able to drastically increase functionality, collaboration and data integrity. A major differentiator? Some softwares try to imitate Excel, while others are built to integrate with it. There is a major difference between integration and imitation. With imitation, you might be working in an Excel-like environment, but it’s not the real thing. At best a light or limited-functionality version of reliable, familiar application, imitation software can be prone to version control, data integrity and a host of other issues associated with a “shadow system” of standalone spreadsheets. If you’re using software that integrates with Excel, however, you know that you’re using something reliable. Rather than attempts at imitation, it’s far better and easier to rely on the power, flexibility and familiarity of Excel to help you transform your financial analysis and planning process into a true powerhouse. FP&A Tools: Defining Features A number of key trends have totally changed the landscape of FP&A. These trends have become so important that they’ve already been adopted by most FP&A tools. At this point, you might call them “table stakes,” since they’re required to “play the game.” House All Your Data in a Centralized Multidimensional Database Data integrity is imperative to trust the data you’re looking at. With centralized and controlled data, you’ll have a single source of truth for the entire organization, and a more efficient, trusted and respected finance team. Using a multidimensional database means you’ll be able to slice and dice your data across by any dimension to get a complete picture of your company performance. Conduct Effective Collaboration and Workflow Automation Collaboration is better when everyone has access to centrally stored and trusted data. Workflow automation allows finance professionals to spend less time collecting or verifying data, and more time doing value-added analysis. And when everything’s complete, you can send reports automatically to different stakeholder groups for analysis and review. Integrate Financial and Non-Financial Data Having access to financial data is key but add in non-financial data, and all of a sudden FP&A professionals can build powerful new models that incorporate more information for better analysis, forecasts and, ultimately, decisions. Manage Governance and Control You need the capability to track every change from every user by way of a reliable audit trail. You also need to be able to revert back to previous versions as necessary. Especially for public companies and those in regulated industries, it’s critical to have visibility into the status of each process, along with access to the most current and accurate data. Strong data governance rules help companies maintain order and organization of their data, ensuring the highest possible level of data integrity. Create Insightful Reports Trusted, reliable data will get you 90% of the way there, but that data needs to be conveyed in an easy-to-understand format. Having a tool that allows you to build insightful, intuitive and beautiful reports for management is key to succeeding in a modern business climate. FP&A Tools: Differentiators While the above are must-haves in order for an FP&A software provider to get their foot in the door, the following features set the best FP&A tools above the rest: Powerful Modeling and Data Discovery A strong FP&A tool will allow you to produce more powerful, useful models. By having access to data that used to be siloed in different departments, FP&A professionals can now find inefficiencies that were previously hidden, helping stakeholders find new methods for strategic growth. Self-Serve Reporting  Modern FP&A tools allow senior managers to have access to data at their fingertips through illustrative, self-serve and powerful dashboards tailored to their individual needs. Data Integration Strong processes set themselves apart by integrating all data, both financial and non-financial, into a single, central repository. Allowing this data to be accessed and analyzed for interpretation in a familiar environment, like Excel, is a best practice that will truly set your organization apart – and it’s a feature that only some FP&A tools provide. Intuitive, True Excel Interface With all the version control, data integration and workflow automation features available, even the most powerful FP&A software is only as valuable as it is adopted – both inside finance and across the organization. Adoption is crucial to FP&A software success, and the fastest way to get there is using Excel as an end-user interface. Excel is already everywhere in business, often imitated but never duplicated by “Excel-like” vendors. Full-featured Excel alone is essential for FP&A software success. FP&A Tools: Use Cases Full-spectrum FP&A tools are like a Swiss Army knife, serving many functions and roles, including: Financial close management: Routine accounting processes – today part of the full spectrum of FP&A – can be automated, removing the need for manual data entry. Not only does this improve the likelihood that everything will balance out at the end of a reporting period; it reduces the time it takes to close the books, giving FP&A professionals more time to generate the stories and recommendations that push their company forward. Budgeting and forecasting: FP&A professionals can work across business lines to create forward-looking data models, allowing stakeholders to make strategic decisions. Integrated planning: Firms are shifting their budgeting processes, enabling them to work in tandem with one another, no longer siloed off on their own. This can include changing from static budgets to rolling forecasting as well. Financial and management reporting: FP&A software can be used to create management reports outlining shifts in business that could occur through a sudden change in demographics. Regulatory reporting: FP&A software should house data – and provide transparent process visibility – for regulatory reporting, and maintain a history of all the reports that have been used in the system. Agile planning: FP&A software and agile planning go hand in hand, helping you plan with agility, plan with confidence and prepare your business for an uncertain future. Financial Planning and Analysis Trends CFOs want to grow their organization. With the evolution of finance tools, FP&A has become an integral part of that process. These are the key FP&A trends driving that growth. Scenario Planning The next few years are going to test the best CFOs. With the possibilities of stagnant or tightening interest rates and global instability, financial markets are poised for volatility unseen in over a decade. The best way to stay ahead in the face of uncertainty is to prepare through scenario planning. Scenario planning is the process of examining and evaluating possible events that may occur in the future. It involves considering how a number of feasible events may change the value of a business or its cash flow. With flexible models and good scenario planning, FP&A teams can ensure their organizations are able to respond quickly to changing conditions—from the global stage to the local market. Data Available Across the Organization Data moves the world—and in today’s business climate, a company’s success is inextricably tied to data. The integrity of that data is paramount, but it’s no longer good enough just to have quality data. Data must be adopted across the organization—owned by finance in a central, single-source database. This is advantageous for a few key reasons. By maintaining all data in a single repository, it ensures that the entire organization is working with the same numbers – a standardized story about how the company’s doing. Since the data is housed it in a single place, it can be updated in real time, allowing for on-the-fly adjustments and shared reports that update automatically. This trend has become a must-have feature for any firm interested in maintaining a competitive edge. In addition to having a centralized database and version control, an audit trail will help with creating and analyzing reports, saving even more time down the road while ensuring data quality. By consolidating data from across the company, finance can get greater insight into the inner workings of the business, with top-down views of the whole firm that provide visibility into: Which products or services to promote (most profitable) or retire (least profitable) Which features to add/remove/promote on your product roadmap Identifying the next markets/regions for expansion Shifting resources and spend to improve sales and marketing performance Consumerization of B2B Software Let’s face it – a lot of enterprise software isn’t what you’d typically call “user friendly.” At the same time, today’s users have come to expect business software that works intuitively and doesn’t need a user’s manual to operate, like the experience they get with today’s leading mobile apps. And some companies are starting to take notice: a new software sector has emerged recently, called B2BC – or business to business consumer software. B2BC has been driven by the growing acknowledgement that business software should be easy to use, as well as a shift toward mobile platforms. No longer are CFOs or finance professionals tied to bulky desktops; users have come to expect the ability to work remotely with the same level of functionality as if they were sitting at a desk in the office. When it comes to FP&A tools, poor usability will lead to poor user adoption, or the emergence of shadow systems, with users choosing to “export to Excel” for comfort. All of a sudden, data is decentralized once again, with disparate offline files being used across the organization—the exact thing you were hoping to avoid! Advanced Analytics To provide the best experience, modern FP&A software allows finance professionals be able to work ad hoc analysis into their standard models. Modern FP&A software also allows finance teams to: Design reports Explore data Share data Gain new insights Make changes based on data and insights Keep it all in Excel Flexible and Dynamic Planning FP&A is moving away from static budgets and shifting to flexible and dynamic planning. One of the clearest examples of this is the growing adoption of rolling forecasts in place of static, annual budgets. The annual budgeting process, once the gold standard in FP&A, is time- and effort-intensive. And often, by the the time the budget is finalized, the data behind it are already out-of-date and irrelevant. Static budgets are often part of managers’ compensation plans, but this allows them to game the system by setting easily achievable goals and hampering growth. Dynamic, rolling forecasts are constantly analyzed, then reforecasted every period based on actual data from the previous period. As a result, every reforecast is more accurate than the previous one. The ultimate goal of this shift – to a 5-quarter rolling forecast, the most common example – is to replace entirely the painful and time-consuming annual budget process. Companies who have changed their budgeting process to a rolling forecast have seen not only increased forecasting accuracy but higher revenue growth as a result. To incentivize the shift from a static budget to rolling forecast, many of these companies are also beginning to tie budget managers’ compensation directly to the accuracy of their forecasts. Doing so discourages end-of-year spending sprees, overestimating costs to come in under budget and other ways to game the budgeting process; it’s also shows business managers how their contributions match up directly with the company’s strategic goals. With the right FP&A software, dynamic forecasts can link directly to different departments' software systems and continuously capture data in order to recognize important trends. From here, forward-thinking finance teams can create scenario and “what-if” models to determine the impact of shifting resources and spend allocations, or changing market conditions (such as currency and interest rate movements, new competitive threats or opportunities) on overall business performance. If completed early, dynamic forecasts can prepare organizations for the most volatile economic storms—from a change in interest rates to a major stock market correction. One-Tool Solution There is a strong market and a desire by teams worldwide to help make business processes move better, faster, more efficiently. But most of today’s FP&A tools only cover one of these trends or solve one problem. Rather than picking a tool that handles one aspect of FP&A – or a number of tools to handle multiple functions – it’s almost always better to choose a single, platform solution that covers the full spectrum of FP&A. In addition to budgeting, planning and forecasting, look for a tool that also includes management dashboards and reporting, regulatory reporting, workforce planning and the financial close process. Choose a single tool that encompasses all your needs and helps future-proof your FP&A processes for years to come. Doing so provides benefits such as: Ease of use across your company. One system that houses all your data.  A less intensive learning curve. The Future of FP&A: What’s Next? Automation, artificial intelligence and cloud solutions are key drivers in the future of FP&A. Tools that promote automated processes will continue to allow FP&A teams to spend less time on repetitive, manually-intensive work and more time helping organizations make strategic decisions. The use of machine learning in advanced analytics, while still in its embryonic stages, has exponentially greater potential as the amount of available data grows. This could drastically increase the levels of detail or amount of data used by FP&A teams to produce reports and insights, while keeping calculation times near or faster than current speeds. Machine learning and AI are strong forward-looking tools that will play key roles in FP&A in the future because of their ability to reduce bias, as well as their ability to reduce unknown factors affecting the success of key drivers or points of impact. Voice functionality may also play a role in making day-to-day FP&A operations easier. Imagine asking: ”Hey Alexa, what are our outstanding receivables right now?” or asking a question to a dedicated Slackbot – rather than running an SQL query. Connecting to data is becoming easier, and its integration more seamless. In fact, tools like Boomi, Microsoft Flow, Zapier and more are already making it easier to connect FP&A software with everything from email and Slack to JIRA and Salesforce. Got three minutes? Check out our product demo video and see how Vena can drive faster, smarter, more data-driven strategic decisions. Good News: What this Means for Finance Teams All of this is great news for finance professionals. With more efficient processes, FP&A professionals spend less time developing models, and more time analyzing and interpreting the information at their disposal. The shift to full-spectrum FP&A is creating an elevated, strategy-focused role for everyone in finance, all the way up to the CFO. In-depth management reports on a more frequent basis allow organizations to become more agile and aligned from the bottom up. A holistic plan based on company-wide data allows for greater cooperation between business units and among employees. All of these factors lead to better performance and more successful companies in general—and that’s the true goal of modern FP&A.

Your financial close process is tried, tested and true. Or maybe you always thought it was—until the world came face to face with a pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic and the changes it’s brought to the working environment have shed new light on the monthly financial close process. By adding fresh pressures it revealed challenges that have always been there. And some teams have started stepping up as a result, to improve their month-end close and the processes that support it—Vena’s own team included. “It exposed a lot of inefficiencies in our process … things we thought we had down,” Vena’s Chief Finance Officer, Darrell Cox, admitted in Excel at More with Financial Close, part of Vena’s recent Financial Close Livestream—now available on demand to members of Vena’s Plan to Grow platform. “And maybe we weren't taking full advantage of the systems that we had.” At Vena, Darrell admits, the pandemic has permanently changed our financial close process. We’ve added new month-end close best practices and efficiencies that will continue to inform the process even as the workplace starts to return to normal.  And from what we’ve seen, we’re not the only ones.  Adding New Pressures  Remember the days when you’d look over your shoulder and shout a question out to your colleague, maybe asking about a specific transaction or a missing statement? It was probably just standard operating procedure—especially for smaller teams. That is, until workforces went remote and informal communications like these were no longer an option. With teams dispersed and everyone working from their separate homes, suddenly those ad hoc communications weren’t possible anymore. In this new remote financial close environment, teams had to find better ways to communicate. But that was just one new pressure that affected the month-end close schedule. “Proximity was over, distributing information and making decisions got harder and meetings got out of hand,” Darrell said of the new pandemic reality. In this new environment, the need for a more defined month-end close process was revealed—as were several obstacles getting in the way of that happening. And the realities of a remote work environment meant those obstacles suddenly couldn’t be ignored. Meeting the Challenges Head On Four common challenges have long been a reality of the financial close process. But the pandemic has inspired many finance teams to tackle them head on—introducing changes that promise to improve their financial close process now and in the future. 1. Poor Collaboration Let’s face it, those over-the-shoulder conversations probably weren’t the most efficient way of communicating with colleagues. They were still helping to facilitate collaboration throughout the financial close process, though. But as the pandemic progressed and companies embraced remote work they weren’t possible anymore—exposing holes in how teams collaborate around their financial close. Without true visibility into data, as well as team tasks and schedules, effective collaboration can be challenging, especially during a remote month-end close. What’s Changing While there was a lot of wasted time on unnecessary (and unwanted) meetings early on in the pandemic, more collaborative technology and processes that facilitate communication have been able to replace that for many organizations. When led by strong leadership that champions their usage across the board, common tools and processes with collaboration built in can help set a new standard and improve communication around the month-end close—whether you’re working remotely or not. In fact, with those in place this evolution promises a more transparent and collaborative financial close environment even once restrictions are lifted.   2. Lack of Automation Speed is essential in any financial close. You want to do a good job and avoid errors, of course, but you also need to get the month closed out as quickly as possible. To accomplish those goals, finance teams have relied on their own processes and shortcuts—and making changes to those has risked interfering with their month-end close timeline. Which means that teams, pre-pandemic, would have balked at any kind of change—even when that change comes in the form of automation that promises to add new efficiencies in the long run. Change has been impossible to avoid over the past two years, though—and keeping up with that change has meant embracing automation tools. What’s Changing The pandemic has revealed “deficiencies in automated processes” across finance—while making those processes especially critical. Not only do team members no longer see each other in person every day, but illness and the Great Resignation have left many teams short staffed, while the reality of living in a pandemic has meant the team members remaining are often overwhelmed. The organizations that have been able to streamline their financial close through automation have been able to remove some of that pressure. By focusing automation efforts on repetitive, overly manual or time-consuming tasks, you can make the entire monthly close process more efficient and begin to standardize it across the entire team. New technologies, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), can also help create fresh ways to improve your close process.  3. Disconnected Data Disconnected data is a problem for a lot of finance and operations teams, across all processes—including your financial close. Missing and poor quality data is a familiar issue, while tracking down the right data has long been a headache. A pandemic hasn’t made any of that easier, adding new pressures as dispersed teams working remotely try to get the data they need from different sources around the globe. This means it’s become more necessary than ever to get those data problems in order. What’s Changing The pandemic hasn’t solved our data problems. In fact, our 2021 Industry Benchmark Report shows that finance teams are still struggling with disconnected data and are missing a unified strategy on how they create, maintain, control and use data. But the need for remote processes, including a remote financial close, has added new urgency to the need for such a strategy, as well as processes that will ensure the right data is coming to you monthly—when and how you need it. 4. Disparate Systems and Processes If you have dispersed teams working around the world, it’s not uncommon for each of them to be using a different technology and/or processes to close their books. And that makes collaborating, consolidating data and introducing the automation you need even more difficult. All of that was true pre-pandemic, of course, but it became clearer when added to the other pressures that have come to light over the past couple of years. Without a common process and shared financial close software, communication and transparency become even more difficult to accomplish, adding pressure to the month-end close process—and, as a result, your team. What’s Changing The pandemic has forced many organizations to review their existing financial close software in order to improve communication and transparency in this new remote working environment. Implementing a common technology that’s easy to use no matter where you are provides a shared system that dispersed teams can collaborate within. And by working in a common system, an efficient and shared process that everyone can get behind becomes easier to achieve. Establishing a New Normal “Finance processes and communications aren't just about communications between us finance people,” Darrell pointed out in Excel at More with Financial Close. “It's about communication across the business. It's about supporting this process of running our business, delivering timely and accurate information and analysis, supporting and achieving business alignment and making great business decisions.” With the pandemic forcing them to evolve, teams are working together better than ever to achieve that. And the good news is that those processes aren’t going anywhere. Even as restrictions begin to lift, organizations are in a better place to continue working virtually, across disparate teams and in the office—with a stronger, more effective month-end close in place.

Change is inevitable. Change is powerful. Change is hard. All of these things can be true at the same time—and often are. That’s true in life and it’s just as true when it comes to changes to the solutions you use to power your ongoing financial processes—including your financial close.  Your month-end close process is an integral part of your finance team’s ongoing workload, after all. And as such, your team is probably used to approaching it in a certain way. So while introducing new technology may improve things in the long run, don’t be surprised if the shift comes with resistance from your team—at least initially. Without team involvement, though, any changes you make will go nowhere—which makes their buy-in critical to any new financial close technology investment.  Introducing Change Your team is busy already. It’s no wonder, then, that some might see learning how to use new financial close software as just another item on their to-do list. “It’s tough to absorb the change when you’re running a million miles an hour and doing your day-to-day job of closing the books,” John Power, COO of Fluence Technologies, explained in Vena’s recent Financial Close Livestream, now available on demand to members of Plan To Grow. “If you’re doing a project like this, it’s probably taking a lot longer than you’d like [to complete your month-end close] and you’re working lots of hours. Now you’ve got this project layered on top.” Power was one of several finance experts who participated in The Modern Financial Close Panel, led by Vena Chief Solutions Officer Rishi Grover. During the event (now available on demand), panelists explored how to introduce new financial close software in a way that gets your whole team on board.  Choosing the right financial close software is a good place to start, Power suggested. An easy-to-use solution that doesn’t add too much pressure to the team will be more likely to be accepted than one that comes with a steep learning curve. “One of the things that’s important is having a solution and an approach that doesn’t tax the organization too heavily and presents a solution that’s easily adopted and used and leveraged by the finance organization without them having to learn new technologies and how to program and things like that,” he said. But of course, we all know that effectively introducing new technology into the workplace, especially one as integral as your financial close software, can be tricky no matter what. Which is where your change management process comes in. Three change management best practices can help. 3 Best Practices To Get Team Buy-in So how do you go about adding new technology that will keep your team invested and adopting new software seamlessly? These three change management best practices can help you get the team buy-in you’re looking for: 1.  Ask Your Team for Their Opinions  If you’re bringing in new technology to power your financial close process, asking your month-end close team their opinions is a good place to start. Getting involvement right from the beginning will help you get them invested early—but more than that, it will help you identify any pushback that exists from the onset.  Is your team simply so stressed with their current workload that the idea of taking the time to learn how to use new software is anxiety inducing? Are they happy with the technology you have and don’t want to change? Or is it the specific solution you’re considering that they have an issue with? Knowing the answers to questions like these can help you address their concerns from the start. “Most and foremost would be the end user buy-in,” Modern Financial Close panelist Martin Nöel, SVP and CFO of Premier Tech, explained. “Involve them very early in the process, identify their pains so they can speak for themselves on the gains they would see. If they [see] gains in their activities, they will jump into it and support the senior management's undertakings of implementing such a tool.”   2. Plan Out Your Approach Dumping a new technology onto your team’s laps without any kind of change management plan in place isn’t usually the best way to introduce something that’s bound to affect their entire workflow—even if that change is positive in the end. And especially if your team is already stressed out with their monthly financial close workload.  Creating a plan for your approach, on the other hand—one that’s empathetic to everything your employees currently have on their plate and doesn’t over-tax them—can help ease the way. That plan may include training and the release of learning materials, as well as time for feedback from new users.  Panelist Christine Harms, Controller for the Arizona Cardinals, used her team’s adoption of Vena as an example. “I, from the very beginning, included our team members on the finance team throughout the entire process: reviewing Vena, going through Vena, making the determination of what we wanted to see going forward,” she said. “And at that point, once we chose Vena, we decided that we would have a core team that included all of our senior accountants, staff accountants, the ones that were going to use Vena for the most part to finish the close each month, in building and developing the workbooks that were going to be used.”  3. Get CFO and Senior Leadership Involvement Big changes benefit from strong leadership involvement—and since any changes to your financial close process are going to be disruptive by nature, it’s a good time to bring out the big guns. “Buy-in from the top is extremely important,” said panelist Brian Carlson, VP, Financial Planning for Otter Tail Corporation. “To have their support and to be involved in the process and to be that cheerleader on the sidelines.”  Getting your CFO and/or other senior leadership to champion your cause early on can help build momentum for the new technology you’re trying to put in place. And communicating that commitment and demonstrating leadership’s involvement to the whole team will get others excited about it too, Power added. “Making that visible so that people can see it and understand and buy in [is one of the most important things],” he said during the panel. “I think that creates the push that’s required to make these types of things successful.”  What Comes Next By employing change management best practices like these to get your team on board and invested, you put yourself in a better position to successfully implement the technology you need to better fuel your financial close—and get the right people actually using it.  But, Carlson warned, as with any change management process, don’t be surprised if it’s not all smooth sailing—even with a well-thought-out plan in place. “A lot of times things have to get uglier before they get better,” Carlson said in the Modern Financial Close Panel. “It’s a challenge and just keeping that communication open through the whole process is so very important.” One last piece of advice: Don’t be afraid of change yourself, even if your team is. They’ll need someone to champion it from start to finish, celebrating the benefits of the new technology and what it can mean going forward. Just like the panelists in our Modern Financial Close Panel, you can be that person—leading your organization into a more efficient, technology-driven month-end close.  

Whether or not we’re in—or inevitably awaiting—a recession, you need to prepare your revenue planning process for a downturn. In times of higher inflation, quickly rising interest rates and volatile economic conditions, you already know it’s critical to be proactive and make decisions fast—faster than the changes in the market. So what’s your course of action? Not sure how you should proceed? Can you position your business to succeed after the recession concludes? We have seven tips on how to recession-proof your business’s revenue planning process: 1. Plan To Be Wrong Remember the adage, “Failing to plan is planning to fail?” Conversely, Vena Senior Manager of FP&A Thomas Krolak advises businesses to plan to be wrong. While nothing ever goes according to plan perfectly and your forecasts will always return with variances, you need to focus on mitigating the magnitude of those inaccuracies. Identify—quickly—when your plan has traveled off course and how to adjust and update those plans when that’s recognized. If you can accept that perfection is unattainable, then you can proceed with the positive mindset of placing your business in the best position possible, considering the unfavorable circumstances, to recognize and seize opportunities—especially when the economy improves. Hear Thomas Krolak, Senior Manager of FP&A at Vena, talk about adjusting plans and capitalizing on opportunities.    To watch the full Agile Revenue Planning Best Practices session on demand, visit the Excelerate =SUM(it) 2022 replays on Plan To Grow. 2. Use Your 2008 (and 2020) Experience The economy will improve, right? Just ask the most experienced people on your team. If your finance team employs financial leaders who’ve been through the 2008 recession, leverage their experience. Did they exit the recession of 2008 in a healthy and enviable position? If so, how did they do it? If not, what did they learn? And of course, what learnings have you gleaned from the uncertainty of March 2020? Talk to your most experienced financial decision-makers about how they succeeded or failed in 2008. Surely, they’ll have stories to tell, and ideally, lessons to share.   3. Collaborate With Non-Finance Teams When you’re consulting your finance leaders, talk to the leaders outside your department. What are you hearing from the marketing team? What are the sales leaders telling you? That’s what Andre Proulx, Director of Marketing Operations at Vena, advised.   Ruslan Valeev, then-Director of Revenue Operations at Vena, shared at Excelerate =SUM(it) 2022, one example of cross-departmental collaboration to align budgets. He talked about resource and budget shifting—upon learning marketing had generated more leads than planned—dedicating fewer resources to outbound sales development and shifting headcount accordingly. The result? Better headcount planning for teams to focus on where they should. That was just one of the benefits of collaboration. Watch the next video to find out where else should teams should be placing their focus.   4. Think High Growth, High Margin Target customers in high-growth markets and prioritize your high-margin products or services. Efficiency has never been more important, so focus on the bigger deals in a shorter time. Monitor these KPIs closer: Average Deal Size / Average Order Value Net Profit Margin Customer Acquisition Cost Sales Cycle Time Customer Churn Rate And after a closer look at your highest margin products or services, what else are you offering? 5. Create New Revenue Streams What do your prospects need? And what do your customers need? Listen to your prospects and customers to understand how their needs have changed and emerged during these uncertain time. Now isn’t the time to cease marketing—the businesses that continued marketing spend during previous recessions helped them exit better positioned than their competitors. If you have an idea, and then your product or service is ready to launch, do it. If it fills a specific customer need, a recession shouldn’t stop you. Just remember to forecast how your new revenue streams will affect your scenario analyses. 6. Plan for Potential Outcomes With Scenario Analysis In Planning [as we know it] is Dead, the latest e-book from the Business Partnering Institute (BPI) which explores a new planning paradigm for the next normal, Vena VP of FP&A Tom Seegmiller said, “Those that have continued to adapt … are probably doing scenario planning.” So if you’re performing driver-based forecasting, scenario analysis helps you better prepare for market changes by exploring possible responses to positive or negative events. That way you can see how internal and external factors in a range of possibilities may impact your bottom line. When you’ve prepared scenarios to analyze—best case, base case, worst case and anything in between—you can be more decisive. Which leads us to our last tip. 7. Be Hyper-Decisive Hyper-decisiveness. Howard Dresner, Chief Research Officer at Dresner Advisory Services, said during Excelerate =SUM(it) 2022, “Being able to very quickly figure out what's going on and be able to respond appropriately, be able to execute with precision as quickly as possible—that's what differentiates companies.” The businesses that are hyper-decisive are the businesses that move the fastest and become better-positioned post-recession. Don’t watch and wait—be hyper-decisive. Recession-Proofing Your Business's Revenue Planning Process The impending recession likely won’t be your first disruptive event, nor will it be your last, unfortunately. So just move forward. By following these seven tips on how to recession-proof your business’s revenue planning process, when that inevitable next disruption arrives, you’ll have a success story (from the 2022 recession) of your own to tell—and some lessons to share.

Hertz understands the havoc that data errors can cause. Back in 2014, the rental car company found upwards of $46.3 million worth of errors in its 2011 statements. Emerging from a range of sources—from uncollectible fees for damaged vehicles, to doubtful accounts and miscalculations—the errors came with serious repercussions. Hertz not only saw a 9% decrease in stock prices but their CFO resigned shortly after. Still, that’s chump change compared to the data mistakes the Bank of America found the very same year.  Also in 2014, the bank found miscalculations in its 2009 acquisition of investment firm Merrill Lynch. As it turned out, Bank of America had overstated its capital position by $4 billion. Again, stock prices plummeted in the aftermath. Mistakes happen. These big business examples are proof enough of that. But they don’t always happen without consequences. They’re not the purview of big businesses alone, either. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are just as susceptible to the common pitfalls of data analysis—and the repercussions can be just as difficult to deal with. So what can go wrong for SMBs when the data isn’t right? Getting the Data Wrong Whether the result of human error, undefined processes, lack of collaboration or a range of other issues, there are plenty of examples of businesses getting their financial data wrong. Mistakes are a normal part of doing business, after all. But those data mistakes can have a ripple effect if you don’t catch them, which can have lasting effects for business owners and operators.  That’s not just the case for big names such as Hertz and Bank of America, either. With smaller teams and less-defined processes, small and medium-sized businesses can easily find themselves affected too. The resulting errors may not make headline news, but they can affect your bottom line, create inaccuracies in your financial statements and impact your reputation with customers and employees. So let’s look at some of the things that can go wrong for SMBs when the data isn’t right. 1. Lost Time A lack of collaboration and communication between team members can make duplicate data and data omissions more common than you’d think. That’s especially the case in situations where multiple invoices have been received for a single charge, or multiple team members are manually entering data in different versions of a spreadsheet. But if you don’t catch them, those duplicates and omissions can trickle down to impact your balance sheet, income statement, tax statements and more. To keep things running smoothly, then, it’s critical that you trust your data is right—and when you can’t, you waste time double and triple checking your numbers. That requires extra resources, leaving less time to spend strategizing towards your growth goals. 2. Errors on Repeat Omissions and duplicates add their own form of chaos. But what happens if a whole formula accidentally gets overwritten and every calculation that relies on it is wrong? It can be harder to catch errors like these, yet they can have more far-reaching effects, leading to multiple errors throughout your financial records. Putting more defined processes and centralized systems in place can help ensure they don’t happen in the first place. 3. Unruly Data Too many spreadsheets can make it difficult to keep your data straight—and to be confident you’re working with the most recent version. When there’s no single source of truth, especially with multiple team members making changes, you risk pulling up an outdated version or accidentally leaving a colleague’s hard work behind while you add your own updates. Having a central database can help ease this issue and make things run more smoothly, with a single source of truth. 4. A Foggy Perspective Processes such as budgeting, forecasting and scenario modeling rely on accurate data if you want to get them right. If the data’s wrong in the first place, or if you’re using outdated numbers to fuel your perspective, you’re at risk of getting things wrong—meaning you won’t be as agile for your future needs as you could be. 5. No Time To Analyze Working in finance for a small or medium-sized business may already mean you’re spending most (or all) of your time on traditional accounting duties. After all, your team is only so big and vendors, suppliers and employees need to get paid, financial statements have to be prepared and your overdue receivables need to be followed up on—among a list of other tasks. When you also need to spend time looking for data errors and dealing with any repercussions of those you didn’t catch, there’s even less time left over to spend on FP&A and the strategic planning that will help you in your business goals. Getting your data right, then, frees up time to get other things on the right track as well. Getting the Data Right So how do you make sure you have the data right, avoiding those all-too-common pitfalls in data analysis so that you can get on with business? Here are a few tips: Introduce a centralized source of data, with proper security and controls built in, so that everyone on your finance team is working from the most current and accurate numbers. That single source of truth will also reduce the need for repetitive manual data entry, freeing up time and minimizing the chances of human error. Put defined processes in place to help ensure everything runs smoothly. The right processes will reduce the chance of duplications and omissions and help you put safeguards in place to ensure your calculations are correct. Choose solutions that will grow with your business. As you grow, you’ll be wrangling more data and want more time to spend strategizing your future path. The right solutions can help you do all of that, scaling as you do. The right data is critical for all businesses, no matter what size they are. If you’re part of a small or medium-sized business, getting the data wrong might not cost you billions of dollars, but it can be damaging all the same. In fact, getting the data right in SMBs can be even more important—because, unlike big businesses, you don't have the luxury of large reservoirs to back you up if something goes wrong. The future of your company is reliant on data: to secure funding, build your customer base and keep building towards your goals. Without accurate data, you might not have a growth plan at all. Getting the data right, then, is critical. So why not make it easier to avoid the five major pitfalls in data analysis going forward?