Planning, Budgeting & Forecasting

Planning, Budgeting & Forecasting

Increase Efficiency and Performance using Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting Solutions!


Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting is a process and system designed to help organizations to link strategy to plans and execution.

It’s a LIFE-cycle that organizations go through:

  • Setting goals and budgets.
  • Defining plans.
  • Closing the books.
  • Reporting the results to stakeholders.

Organizations perform a variety of analytics to understand “why” the results are above or below expectations and model various business scenarios that can impact future performance. Modeling questions include, for example:

  1. What if we raise prices?
  2. What if we move resources from one region or product line to another?
  3. What’s the impact on revenue and profits?
  4. What data do we need to determine appropriate expansion decisions?

These ritualistic and necessary process organizations go through on a regular basis — monthly, quarterly, and/or annually – is our “raison d’etre” and we help you discover where to best allocate capital and operational funding.

When it’s done right, EPM will:

  • Improve efficiency by eliminating spreadsheets and making your planning and reporting processes go faster.
  • Improve accountability by getting more line managers involved in the planning process and empowering managers with self-service access to financial and operating results.
  • Provide insights into the business that maybe aren’t visible on the surface and which are actionable — so it creates greater business agility.

Year-end financial results rarely match up exactly with the budget that was set at the beginning of the fiscal year.  This is simply because a business activity is highly dynamic and unexpected things happen over the course of the year such as:

  • Economic conditions change.
  • Industries are disrupted.
  • Competitors change tactics.
  • Employee turn over.
  • Technology advances.

Here is the stress test:

  • Are you operating on static financial budgets with outdated business assumptions?
  • Is your company running a business on spreadsheets – but – your company has scaled up and you are noticing the bleed aka. things start to come apart at the seams.
  • You’ve discovered conflicting versions , calculation errors, inaccuracies in reporting and planning, and the finance team are stuck in reconciling gaps.
  • Is your company still working on the paper and not in the cloud?

We work with you to solve these pain points. Imagine your managers having access to real-time insights into key performance metrics delivered through interactive dashboards and reports. These can be addressed with a well thought-out Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting solution.

Astral Solutions Group’s Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting Solution can be configured to fit your organizations’ individual requirements, irrespective of size, diversity, and locations.

What’s in it for You!

  • Reduce planning, budgeting, and forecasting cycle times.
  • Improve the accuracy of plans and forecasts.
  • Perform Comparative/Variance and Profitability Analysis Reporting.
  • Optimize resource allocations and improve performance.
  • Focus Finance resources on value-added analysis.
  • Obtain horizontal and vertical analyses that are timely and consistent.
  • Identify spikes and declines in data, financial reports, and profitability.
  • Multi-Year Budgeting and forecasting.
  • P&L and Balance Sheet.
  • Workflow capabilities.
  • One centralized repository for your budget data.
  • Detailed audit trail to view who changed data and when.
  • Score carding and KPI Dashboards.
  • What-if Modeling and Scenario Analysis.
  • Achieve a stronger grasp on future cash flow.

 

Our Areas of Expertise!

  • Revenue and COGS Planning.
  • Workforce and Department Planning.
  • Project Planning.
  • Capital Assets Planning.
  • Driver-Based Planning.
  • Rolling Forecasts.
  • Risk and Opportunity Analysis.
  • Top down or Bottom-Up Budgeting.
  • Sales and Cash Forecasting.
  • Financial Planning Process Improvement.
  • Identifying appropriate innovative solutions and technologies.
  • Oracle Hyperion Planning on-Premises and Oracle EPM Cloud – EPBCS

Astral Solutions Group is a Trusted and Leading OneStream implementation Partner and Oracle Hyperion EPM On-Premises on Oracle EPM cloud consulting company and Oracle Service Partner. Astral Solutions Group is based in Mississauga, Ontario Canada and we provide Consulting Services across Toronto, Brampton, GTA, Ontario, Canada, United States and in North America.


”I have selected Astral Solution Group for Financial Close and Consolidation, Planning Budgeting and Forecasting, Profitability and Cost Reporting Solutions in all the three companies that I worked at.  If you are looking for true partners who will burn the midnight oil to make your project successful. They do quality work with lots of personal attention.”
Ankit Dhawan, CFO, Manufacturing Company

”Astral Solutions Group has always been very responsive to my emails and questions and you have been able to fix any problems with the Analytics System. Your service is very good, and I really appreciate it very much.”
Dan Dobratz, VP Mfg - Technology and Engineering

Are you interested in having a conversation for your EPM/CPM requirements?

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