The Role of Automation in Financial Reporting

Successful businesses recognize the importance of financial planning and analysis. Also known as FP&A, financial planning and analysis refers to various planning and budgeting activities that help a company to make savvy decisions regarding its long-term goals. Despite the basic truth that businesses need to be future looking if they hope to succeed, traditional financial reporting has typically focused on what’s happened in the past and present. To that end, most companies are gathering data on revenue, expenses, and other key ratios rather than predicting what’s coming down the pipeline. A leader in financial automation, Centage is pushing past historical financial reporting techniques and trends to help businesses translate previous performance into accurate, actionable projections. By identifying budget variances, companies can better assess how changes will cascade through the rest of the fiscal year. Ultimately, looking to the future is the best way to reach full growth potential while minimizing risk for stakeholders. Keep reading to learn more about how we’re helping businesses report the future and achieve their goals with the aid of automation.

Reporting the Future

In today’s highly volatile business climate, the job of the CFO is more challenging than ever. Further, it’s no longer enough to look at past events and make predictions accordingly. If companies want to succeed in a post-pandemic business landscape, they need to start utilizing their knowledge of what has happened to make assumptions about what might happen with regard to expenses, revenue, profitability, and other important metrics moving forward. Reporting the future is a key part of modern FP&A. And fortunately, modern technology is resulting in a data flood that enables companies to predict more than ever before. By collecting and analyzing data from various parts of the organization, companies can generate reports that provide data-driven answers to all the questions plaguing them. In this sense, FP&A is moving from being reactive to proactive. Moreover, getting futuristic with financial forecasting can aid in risk assessment and help companies avoid costly mistakes. Because financial experts and executives can run scenarios with multiple variables, they have a better ability to evaluate risks while also navigating new opportunities. The end result is you aren’t leaving money on the table.

The Importance of Automation in Financial Reporting

Automation is making it possible for companies to report on the future with greater accuracy and speed. Using cutting-edge financial intelligence, FP&A software serves to automate the daily tasks of corporate financial planning. The end result is companies spend less time manually inputting data and dealing with discrepancies. And because all of your important financial information is now in one place, you can empower multiple people within the organization to access data at a moment’s notice. Here are some of the benefits associated with automation and how it leads to better reporting.

Greater Accuracy

Forecasting is only effective if you can trust the information coming your way. When it comes to accuracy, automated planning and reporting tools are giving organizations real-time performance data. Accurate measurements also allow businesses to engage in scenario modeling. You can test the impact of various scenarios on a dime and explore the consequences of different growth and funding options. Additionally, improving accuracy increases the odds that owners and stakeholders will be on your side from the start so you don’t waste valuable time selling your point of view.

Increased Agility

Even the best information won’t necessarily help your business achieve its goals if you can’t act on it in time. Fortunately, automation allows for increased agility. As your business grows, the old spreadsheet-based reporting systems are not going to meet your needs. Scaling requires instant access to data along with the ability to define and track new metrics based on changing circumstances and shifting resources. With financial planning and forecasting software, you can react more appropriately to market changes before you lose the chance.

Superior Resource Allocation

Between lingering COVID-19 uncertainties and rising inflation concerns, even successful businesses have to determine where to focus their time and energy if they want to achieve their goals. By investing in automation, companies can take the busywork out of their employees’ schedules, enabling them to focus on more essential tasks. And by having all your key data in one place, you can increase the odds of the company working toward a unified goal. Centage’s Planning Maestro is helping a wide range of businesses forecast more effectively. Utilizing state-of-the-art financial reporting and analytics tools, companies can create reports and dashboards predicting financial outcomes. The end result is more accurate projections and better fiscal decision making. As a bonus stakeholders can more readily monitor performance so everyone gets on the same page faster. Learn more about Planning Maestro and find out how it can help you see what the future has in store.