One of the most important contributing factors for any business to find success is an organized and streamlined budgeting and planning process. CFOs and Senior Financial Executives need to be on top of the company finances at all times. This can include everything from expense budgeting, consolidation, cash flow reporting, and revenue planning. If a business wants to be successful in today's competitive atmosphere, it needs to implement a modern budgeting and planning solution. Using cumbersome, error-prone Excel spreadsheets for budgeting and forecasting is a thing of the past. It's important to recognize if your tools and technologies are slowing you down or are impediments to moving your company ahead.
It's time to consider a budgeting and planning method change when you find the time and effort to produce your reports exceed the time you spend analyzing the numbers. Your financial planning solution should provide you with easy answers to any type of question that you may have regarding revenue planning, expense budgeting and reporting. You should never be left worrying if you have the right numbers since the vital information that you need should be at your fingertips. If it takes too much work to get the answers that you need or you are at all skeptical about the answer and don't trust it, it's time to upgrade to a new methodology.
It's also time to make a change if your financial planning solution doesn't allow for you to foresee and plan for any changes to sales, expenses or headcount. Your planning solution should never limit your business options. A good budgeting software solution should easily outline a company's growth trajectory and allow for its users to easily see what would happen if you added some new hires, whether they were full-time, part-time, seasonal, salaried, or hourly, launched a new program or wanted to acquire or divest a business unit. The process should be simple and easy.
Financial planning solutions should make the lives of the finance team easier, not harder. Consider the amount of time that you and your co-workers spend using your planning tool. If the time it takes to figure the system out and make it work for your needs exceeds the time spent looking at and analyzing the numbers, there is clearly a problem. It can be extremely cumbersome to write mathematical formulations and lay out report presentations. After all, there are technology solutions to do that for you. You are being paid to analyze the numbers, and there are much simpler solutions that allow for you to spend more time doing the work that should be done, instead of worrying about setting up a spreadsheet.
Today's budgeting and planning solutions are much simpler and easier to use, and it's time to take advantage of everything that they have to offer. It's easy to get stuck in the budgeting with spreadsheets dark ages, since that might be where you are most comfortable. However, it's imperative to incorporate modern technology into your budgeting strategy. It's the only way to remain relevant and competitive.
About the Author - John Orlando
Centage Corporation provides companies with powerful yet easy-to-use budgeting and forecasting software to enable the most confident, informed decision-making. John Orlando is the Executive Vice President & CFO, John has over 25 years experience in finance, accounting and administration. He has extensive experience working with both high growth Fortune 500 companies and start-up business. Prior to Centage, John served as Group Director of Planning & Analysis at WearGuard (subsidiary of ARAMARK) where he was instrumental in driving profitability via restructuring, cost containment and margin improvement initiatives. For more information about Centage Corporation, please visit: http://centage.com/.
http://structuredsettlementexpert.net/
July 27 2011 | finances | No Comments »
Planning for retirement is necessary. Contrary to popular belief, Social Security was never intended to provide full time income or maintain a lifestyle after retirement. Although many different retirement plans exist, the most common mistakes are made over and over again by Americans planning for retirement. Avoid these mistakes and set a more solid foundation for those retirement years.
1. Expect inflation. Inflation affects prices today and will tomorrow. Most financial analysts expect inflation to increase over the next two to three decades. The cost of living will increase accordingly to double or triple current rates. Inflation will impact finances, especially for those on a fixed income. Pre-planning to allow for inflation rates can protect seniors by providing an adequate supply of money to foot the bills despite rising inflation costs. By putting away two to three times more than needed for the current economy, a secure future can be assured.
2. Don’t count on investment returns allow to cover financial needs. Many people believe that if they build a substantial nest egg and then can live off the dividends or interest payments. This theory is sometimes sound but it depends on the investments. Today’s stock market is precarious and can destroy a carefully planned financial foundation with a single market fluctuation. If investing, do it in real property or sound investments that are not as related to economical surges or downfalls. And, it’s wise to remember that investments, dividends, and interest payments may provide a financial foundtaion but dealing with them can create headaches for the heirs.
3. Remember risks when gathering assets. Age makes a difference when determining what assets (stocks, bonds, and cash) should play a role in a personal portfolio. Workers in their thirties can handle more risk than workers in their fifties or sixties. Invest with wisdom and remember the risk factor. Losing or diminishing the value of assets at the threshhold of retirment can prove disasterous to many senior citizens.
4. Think about taxes. Remember that while investing in tax deferred programs such as IRA’s or 401K plans only defers the tax until retirement. When the funds are withdrawn from either plan, accumulated funds are subject to tax so figure the tax into planning or the size of the expected nest egg may be smaller than expected.
5. Be realistic about retirement spending. Many soon-to-be retirees believe that their expenses will be minimal after retirement but this is not always the case. Some statistics show that many recent retirees spend up to 85% of their retirement income on retirement. This may be relocation expenses, purchase or a retirement home or maintenace on a long time home. Remember as well that in addition to day to day living expenses, many seniors face unexpected financial burdens with health care, home improvement or repair costs, or long term care. Fun things like dining out and travel should be anticipated and the money should be allocated early. More money that needed is a better choice than not enough.
6. Don’t expect more investment returns than are feasible. Have long term objectives and investments that stand the test of time rtaher than flash in the pan, get rich quick hopes for unrealistic returns. Have a sound financial floor to build retirement upon.
7. Plan for a long life. Many retirees don’t expect retirement to last as long as career years but with today’s increasing life expectancies, improved medical care, better nutrition, health and excercise conciousness, and modern conveniences, people live longer than ever before. It’s not a fantasy that retirement may last two, three and even four decades for some seniors so plan ahead for the long term and don’t short change finances with short term funding.
8. Plan ahead for health care. Have solid insurance - don’t count on Medicare alone to float senior health bills. Have and maintain a comphrehensive policy that provides not only for short term illness, surgery, or hospitalization but for long term care as well. Many seniors will find long term care necessary at some point and it’s important to have such care covered to avoid even greater medical costs that can wreck a retirement budget.
http://plantowealth.com
June 20 2011 | finances | No Comments »
