Microsoft Forecaster
Microsoft Forecaster is the fast and affordable
budgeting and planning application that can help organisations take
control of their finances, contain costs, and prevent fiscal
surprises. Equipped with Microsoft Forecaster, companies can budget
and plan for the future more efficiently and accurately.
Setting realistic financial expectations requires valid data and
current assumptions that are closely aligned with a sound business
plan. However, organisations often base their new business plan on
the budget from the previous year. They then make incremental
changes to the budget to align with alterations to their business
strategy. This method can often introduce error and cause the
budget and business plan to conflict. A more solid approach is to
link strategic business objectives to data tied to the
strategy.
With Microsoft Forecaster, front-line managers can build budgets
that are based on their specific objectives and first-hand
knowledge of market conditions. The result is improved accuracy and
a higher level of commitment to the budget. And as the business
climate changes, managers can respond more effectively by adjusting
forecasts and budgets.
Increase collaboration
New users can start working quickly with an application that
works like one they use every day—Microsoft Office Excel. And the
collaborative capabilities help save time and improve the quality
and accuracy of the final budget. Features such as automatic e-mail
notification can help your people work together more effectively.
And because your entire organization can access notification
guidelines from a centralised location, there's little training
involved.
Additional customisable Workflow features help the Budget
Administrator keep budget contributors on track. So business
managers can gain quick access to how their teams are progressing
with budget goals. Predefined security assignments and routings
safeguard your data. This helps to ensure that sensitive
information is provided only to those authorized to view it.
Through the use of supplemental memos and line item detail,
managers can understand the rationale behind important numbers and
assumptions made by other department managers. Such understanding
helps reduce time spent in meetings. And department managers can
interact with each other to help ensure their budgets complement
one another.
Automate data summary
The Rollups feature helps you reorganize your company's chart of
accounts more efficiently. View the parent-child relationships
within your data that control how your posting data is summarized.
And create Rollups for accounts, cost centers, or whatever
accounting entities you choose. Just define your Rollups by using
the intuitive drag-and-drop interface, and then run a simple
Restate function to consolidate your data.
Increase confidence in your data
Help reduce duplicate entries and the potential for error.
Microsoft Forecaster helps managers readily make changes to their
cost centers. They can enter data directly into accounts, or use
copy/grow functions, calculated accounts, or spreadback methods.
Microsoft Forecaster helps improve numeric accuracy and provide
immediate access to reports based on those numbers. If any problems
arise or adjustments are required, changes can be made immediately.
By entering a change based on numbers or percentages, budget
administrators can make an adjustment that ripples through the
entire plan. As a result, budgets can be completed quickly, which
allows you to create more versions, if necessary.
Budget and control expenses more effectively
By accessing up-to-date and historical information from your
organization's general ledger and financial reports, you can budget
and plan with accuracy. This helps managers and budget analysts
save valuable time. Your organisation can shorten its budget time
cycle, reduce printing and mailing costs, and create valid,
accurate budgets that tie directly to your strategic plans–helping
you reach business goals.
Keep business performance on target
Microsoft Forecaster helps organisations meet their goals by
streamlining many of the tasks that comprise the budgeting process.
Create individual budgets. Change the budget model. Consolidate
budgets. And collaborate with interrelated departments. This
streamlining of tasks helps give you more time to construct a
thoughtful budget that is based on valid data and assumptions. So
your budget is more predictive of the future. As a result, you can
provide a higher quality budget with goals that are realistic and
more achievable.
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