Business Intelligence Planning and consolidation
We say sometimes that we live in the times which constant data flow is the most important in. However, in case of Business Intelligence and its financial aspects, we still live in the times of ubiquitous Microsoft Office Excel dependency as it's the only BI tool that most of people have had anything in common with. Even though it lacks of useful capabilities, it still is chosen by further and further companies, once the popularity factor seems deciding. Why teach employees how to use different software if they could have already used MS Excel? And it doesn't matter that other solutions offer broader capabilities, better performance, and a lot in addition.
All that Microsoft Office Excel could provide are spreadsheets. Spreadsheets that are great for presenting separate values, but not for consolidation. Today's business requires a lot more. Thereupon, newer and newer solutions are worked out, and each of them treats the idea of planning and consolidation differently.
Today's Business Intelligence planning and consolidation tools need to be universal and offer significantly wider capabilities. Automated procedures and algorithms for data analysis are crucial. Fully interactive interface which allows users to quickly get to required options, too. The same with the whole infrastructure and the engine. Once budgeting and planning are vital to every company, neither of them could be disregarded by a BI system.
Budgeting, forecasting, planning
Unbelievably easy it is to say "plan the budget, make forecasts, and prepare the strategy". In point of fact, though, each of these things is a result of complex and numerous analysis that - brought up together - lead to specified conclusions. It's not easy to analyze trends, not even mentioning the exceptions and other aspects of data. The thing, then, is to ensure that all analysis are credible. And that all of them can be used for determining the company goal. That's what budgeting and planning IT solutions are used for.
There are numerous things that cannot be analyzed by a human, thereupon they're what different Business Intelligence systems are designed for. To meet all the requirements, planning and consolidation tools is wanted to help with analysis and all questions that are anyhow connected. If there is a need to turn data into usable information, sometimes the whole systems are needed. Thereupon, every forecasts is credible solely thank to IT.
These days, almost all meaningful Business Intelligence companies provides their solutions for budgeting, planning and consolidation. Once all know how the financial aspect is crucial to every company, ensuring the best IT support is indispensable. And what it concerns in details, it depends. Some solutions are designed for analysis solely, while the rest could support also other, equally important, aspects. Cash flow forecasting, strategy planning, performance management, so on and so forth. Thereupon, the ideal Business Intelligence solution should be able to support its users with all help in the matters of budgeting, suiting the finances aspect up to general strategy, consolidating financial and performance indicators to provide reliable and based information, and compare and rate different business scenarios.