4 Key Benefits to Deploying an Automated Financial Planning and Control Solution

ARTICLE — Considering an automated financial planning and control solution, but uncertain if it will be worth the resources you’d have to put into it? Check out this article, where two industry experts discuss what they consider to be the best benefits of such a system.

Maybe you’ve heard about automated financial planning and control solutions, like the one offered by PyanGo. Perhaps you’ve even considered implementing one in your organization. But before you’re willing to begin that process, you want to be sure that it will be worth your investment—after all, deploying such a system takes time and money. How can you be sure it will be a good use of your resources?

Are those questions you’ve been considering? We talked to two industry experts to ask what they think the key benefits of deploying an automated financial planning and control solution are. Read on to see their top four benefits.

Key Benefit #1
Tight Integration with a Native ERP
Suppose your organization is using an ERP (enterprise resource planning software). In that case, a financial solution that integrates seamlessly will be very beneficial, says Saptarshi Bose, solutions advisor at Oracle NetSuite Planning & Budgeting.

“This gives more control and accuracy with the data—not only from the actuals perspective but also from the perspective of the budgets and the forecasts created based on those actuals,” he says.

This gives executives and staff increased visibility into and control over crucial financial data.

Key Benefit #2
Organization Alignment
Bose mentions another critical factor that, he says, people often forget when they’re considering financial solutions: organization alignment.

This idea, he says, refers to “increased collaboration within different segments of the business which are typically involved in financial processes, like Finance, Operations, and HR.”

He says that using an automated financial planning and control solution results in increased visibility from and for people at all levels of the organization. “A platform that is automated and connected to a source ERP can result in greater visibility from the executive level as well as from the level of the operational people.”

Key Benefit #3
Budget Checks
Mike Canniff, CEO, and co-founder of PyanGo, thinks that one of the best benefits of a system like the one from PyanGo is budget control because organizations may be flying blind without it. “We could have a great plan in place for the overall organization spending for the year,” he says, “but without being able to automate the controls part, we may end up with surprises.”

A financial control system avoids that problem before it even starts. “Before the vendor payment is committed,” he says, “we can check to ensure that an organization is not going over budget.”

He concludes, “That’s a key point throughout a procurement process, to ensure that these surprises don’t happen.” With these controls in place, organizations can stay within their budget, which is crucial for good spending management.

Key Benefit #4
More Efficiency for Finance Teams
The most important benefit, says Bose, is that an automated financial solution will “provide time to Finance to do better decision making and analysis.”

In many situations, the Finance department has to spend a lot of time collecting information from all the different departments and groups in the organization. An automated system can gather all that information quickly and efficiently. “An automated and a standardized platform,” says Bose, “can eliminate that on day one.”

The results of all of this can be hugely beneficial to an organization. Bose says, “It’s empowering a business to own their budgets and forecasts. And then Finance can spend the time to do better analysis.”

PyanGo Automated Budgetary Control for NetSuite
PyanGo’s Automated Budgetary Control for NetSuite, seamlessly built inside Oracle NetSuite, lets organizations take control of their spend. It allows them to automatically regulate and track expenditures against predefined authorized budgets and encumber expenses throughout the procurement lifecycle. The solution tracks hard and soft commitments via purchase requests or purchase orders. All expenditures outside of compliance are flagged for review before funds are encumbered. Automated Budgetary Control for NetSuite also extends standard and advanced procurement, expense reports, and journal processing modules.

Contact PyanGo to learn more about how PyanGo’s Automated Budgetary Control for NetSuite can benefit your organization.

Click here to schedule an online product demonstration.