21st Century Budgeting for Dynamics NAV

Homegrown Excel budgets might be satisfactory for personal or small business planning, especially due to the relatively tiny amount of required data.  However, companies using Microsoft Dynamics NAV are beginning to take note of budgeting software as a relevant investment, particularly as today’s budgeting and forecasting solutions are capable of making company planning a collaborative and streamlined process, transcending the built-in capabilities of NAV.  Organization-wide budgeting and forecasting can be an aggravating task that most people might want to avoid, but it is such an important responsibility because it focuses on a company achieving growth by living within its means.

Any enterprise has multiple moving parts that need to contribute data for analysis and planning.  While most finance teams hold Excel up on a pedestal, when it comes to secure, simple collaboration for budgeting, it can be logistically problematic.  If Dynamic NAV users already own Excel licenses, the return on the investment in a budgeting solution might be unclear at best.  This article will discuss and explore the benefits of budgeting and forecasting solution options for Dynamics NAV, including pointers on how to pick the best product to meet company needs.

Budgeting software today have recently been trending upward in the business world because they invite ownership into the process as multiple contributors can simply, securely build and oversee their own budgets, as co-authors of the enterprise-wide budget.  Some budgeting and forecasting software options are Excel add-ins, so the beloved and familiar spreadsheet program is simply accelerated as a response to customer upgrade requests for a more intuitive, secure Excel, without the hassle of incongruent, manual spreadsheets.  Furthermore, budgeting solutions from independent software vendors employ accounting and business logic that provides easy-to-use, customizable templates for automation and reuse.

Budgeting solutions are now built with business user friendly logistics and security at the forefront.  CFOs can ask their department heads to own part of the budgeting process by securely contributing their own departmental data to the company-wide budget database – all without participating in a long back-and-forth e-mail thread and linking all of the spreadsheets together.  The budget manager can then produce a complete, consolidated company budget.  Sound less excruciating than importing information in and out of Dynamics NAV to Excel?  Or using another proprietary software that doesn’t utilize Excel?

Sure it does.  The investment can be appraised in time, energy, personnel morale in addition to the traditional monetary return.  Additionally, department heads can easily oversee their own budgets while easily contributing to the process most would like to avoid altogether.  Most professionals now should want to learn how to pick the very best solution in order to meet specific company needs.  Simply, make sure to consider features such as whether the product is Excel-based or a proprietary software, budgeting capability offerings and integrating between Dynamics NAV and the solution, if the product is positioned within a full BI suite, and live integration versus a data storage option.

To continue learning more about what to consider when picking the best budgeting tool for Dynamics NAV, read the rest of this article here.

By Solver, Inc.

by sp;ve