What Should We Consider to Choose the Right Tool for Our FP&A Process?

Letting go of spreadsheets and adopting a decision-making system isn't a simple decision, but it's a necessary decision. Digital transformation is a fact and, as key people in our organizations, we must seriously consider this decision.

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What are the main characteristics that we should evaluate when deciding which tool to adopt?

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Certainly, that is a difficult question to answer in a few lines, but I will make the effort to summarize these characteristics in a few key points:

• Flexibility in customization: The tool must allow all business rules to be captured. Although the projections in the financial statements are similar, there are peculiarities of each business that must be incorporated into the system. The chosen tool must be flexible in order to capture these particularities within the system.

• Centralization of premises: One of the main problems when using spreadsheets is that each of the areas involved in the process adopts its own macroeconomic premises. The tool we adopt must guarantee the uniformity of the premises.

• Easy to create analysis dashboards: Users must be able to create their visions and analyses simply and quickly. The standard dashboards shared by the company must be complemented by personalized analyses to deepen understanding.

• Fast scenario creation: At critical moments of decision-making, it is essential that the tool allows the execution and comparison of different scenarios.

• Possibility to complement other systems: FP&A you need information from various systems to make decisions and carry out management control. The tool we adopt must allow automatic linking with other complementary systems to eliminate the manual transfer of information.

• Conduct FP&A processes: Finally, the tool to be adopted must facilitate and organize FP&A processes. Collecting information and consulting results based on a single platform accelerates these processes and reduces typical errors in the use of spreadsheets.

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There are multiple platforms and systems that support companies in this transformation. Deciding which platform to choose requires a thorough and calm analysis in order to consider the different relevant aspects of this decision.

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It's time to professionalize your FP&A process.

‍👉 Request a demo of Pyplan and learn how to centralize premises, scenarios and dashboards in one place.