Financial Planning and Analysis

Leveraging Technology in Business Financial Planning

Person working on laptop that shows many different graphs

Niharika Sharma

Mon, 02/26/2024 - 12:00

Achieving personal and business success hinges on effective financial planning, a multifaceted endeavor encompassing obligations, goals, investments, expansion, and more. Managing these complexities and staying ahead leaves little margin for error.

One crucial area where technology is making a significant impact is in Business Financial Planning. Companies are increasingly leveraging cutting-edge tools and software to streamline their financial planning processes, enhance accuracy, and make informed decisions. In this blog, we will explore how businesses can harness the power of technology to transform their Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) efforts.

The Role of Financial Planning Software

Financial planning software stands as the cornerstone of modern business financial planning. These sophisticated tools empower organizations to move beyond traditional spreadsheets and manual processes, offering a centralized platform for comprehensive financial management. By automating routine and manual tasks, these tools save valuable time, reduce errors, and allow finance professionals to focus on strategic analysis.

From budgeting and forecasting to tracking investments and planning for taxes, technology offers a myriad of avenues to streamline financial planning and optimize costs. It’s crucial to understand the benefits of utilizing technology in Business Financial Planning.

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Benefits of Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A)

Efficiency and Accuracy:

Financial planning software automates repetitive tasks such as data entry and calculations, minimizing the risk of human error. This not only boosts the accuracy of financial forecasts but also frees up time for finance teams to focus on more strategic aspects of planning.

Real-Time Data Insights:

In the fast-paced business environment, timely and accurate information is critical. Advanced financial planning tools enable businesses to access real-time data, allowing for more informed decision-making. This agility is essential in responding quickly to market changes and adapting strategies accordingly.

Exela’s FP&A solution creates profit and loss (P&L) statements, board reports, management reports, statements of cash flow, and more. Creating in-depth visibility with respect to key financial aspects of the ongoing business and helps determine the key drivers for the net profit and earnings.

Scenario Planning:

Business financial planning involves navigating through various scenarios. Financial planning software facilitates scenario analysis, allowing businesses to model different situations and assess their financial impact. This helps in creating robust contingency plans and optimizing resource allocation.

Collaboration and Communication:

Cloud-based financial planning solutions enable seamless collaboration among different departments and stakeholders. This ensures that all relevant parties are on the same page, fostering better communication and alignment of financial goals with overall business objectives.

Strategic Forecasting:

Modern financial planning tools use advanced analytics and machine learning algorithms to provide more accurate and sophisticated forecasting. This allows businesses to anticipate trends, identify potential risks, and proactively plan for future challenges.

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Embracing Business Financial Planning Technology

Evaluate Your Needs:

Before adopting financial planning software, it's crucial to assess the specific needs of your business. Identify pain points in your current financial planning process and look for a solution that addresses those challenges.

User Training and Adoption:

The successful implementation of financial planning technology requires proper training for users. Ensure that your finance team is well-versed in the features and functionalities of the chosen software to maximize its benefits.

Integration with Existing Systems:

To achieve seamless financial planning and analysis, it's essential to integrate the chosen software with existing business systems. This integration streamlines data flow, reduces manual data entry, and enhances overall efficiency.

Stay Updated with Technological Trends:

Technology is constantly evolving, and so is financial planning software. Regularly assess the technological landscape to identify new features or tools that can further enhance your business financial planning capabilities.

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Embrace Technology to Gain Competitive Edge with Exela

In the digital era, companies that embrace technology in their business financial planning processes gain a competitive edge. Financial planning software and technology not only automates routine tasks but also provides invaluable insights, enabling businesses to make informed decisions and navigate the complexities of the modern business landscape.

Exela's Financial Planning & Analysis offering emerges as a beacon of efficiency and sophistication. By seamlessly integrating into your financial ecosystem, Exela's solution empowers organizations to harness the full potential of technology. From automating routine tasks to providing real-time data insights, this platform ensures accuracy, agility, and strategic foresight.

As businesses navigate the complexities of financial planning, Exela stands out as a trusted partner, delivering a comprehensive suite of tools that not only streamline processes but also elevate the entire financial planning experience. The future of financial planning is here, and with Exela, it's not just about adapting to change—it's about thriving in it. Explore the possibilities, embrace innovation, and pave the way to unparalleled success with Exela's Financial Planning & Analysis offering.

Financial Planning and Analysis

Invoice Automation Reduces Costs for a Company in the Casual Dining Industry

#AP

Exela introduced AP automation for a large company in the casual dining industry, which resulted in the company saving 40% in costs.

Challenge

Brinker International, a recognized leader in the casual dining industry, serves over one million guests in its restaurants daily. Its 38-year history has seen the organization grow and change from a single restaurant in Dallas, Texas into one that now boasts more than 15,000 locations in 33 countries and two American territories.

Due to its growth, Brinker International was faced with high labor costs associated with handling over 200,000 paper invoices per month from over 1,700 restaurant locations nationwide. With no immediate plans to integrate the stores with the corporate office and no central document repository, Brinker's AP department had limited insight or management of the invoice control process. In addition, there was no formal quality assurance program, with only minimal reporting and reconciliation processes in place.

Solution

Exela introduced mailroom operations, including scanning and OCR services to support all restaurant invoice ingestion, indexing, and validation. Exela's Box Office Enterprise Information Management and Procure to Pay (P2P) platform operated at the core of the solution.

Exela also provided workflow optimization in a centralized image repository. Outcomes would be thoroughly reported via a user-friendly web-based dashboard using Rule14's module called Athena.

Additionally, a formal quality assurance program was developed.

Benefits

- Brinker realized a savings of 40% in implementing the solutions
- Real-time access to vendor invoices for follow-up
- Reduced the amount of time required to process invoices
- Enhanced web-based reporting and reconciliation process help the client keep a handle on their AP situation and enabled them to close their accounting in a timely manner

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Financial Planning and Analysis

Payment Processing & Transaction Management

Business Intelligence

Power Company Requests an Alternative Billing Solution

#digitaltransformation

A statewide electric power company partnered with Exela to upgrade its variable messaging and billing insert program to improve customer engagement

Challenge

A large Midwestern power company providing service to more than 126,000 customers across seven counties offered a variety of flexible paper and electronic payment options, combined billing, and budget billing plans. As a customer-owned cooperative, the company was very concerned about providing quality customer service, which was reflected in its commitment to provide bill credits in the event that it failed to honor its defined service standards. The power company’s focus on customer satisfaction and its effort to offer flexible billing and payment options made transitioning to a new billing vendor significantly more challenging, as most vendors could not provide the services they required. As the manager of customer operations said, “one of the biggest challenges in implementing a selective insert or variable messaging program is maintaining data integrity. We understood from experience that minimizing file manipulation significantly reduces the introduction of errors. Our goal was to touch the data only once.”

Solution

Exela was chosen to take over the power company’s billing and statements operations, due to our ability to handle billing and statement optimization and automation, our existing print and mail infrastructure, and our years of experience.

We began by developing a detailed process map that clearly defined all deliverables and milestones. We then conducted a detailed analysis of the company’s existing workflows, business needs, and technical requirements. The exploration phase was the basis for the development of a highly customized solution approach that addressed the identified needs of the company. After beta testing and gathering customer feedback, we fully implemented our billing solution within five months, without process disruption.

Benefits

Seamless conversion to the new solution
A proven, end-to-end variable messaging system
Improved billing agility and the flexibility to change messaging dynamically
Inline selective inserting from a single data file
Online document review and approval
The electronic image archive provides instant access to billing documents
User-friendly tools for better process control
Customer maintained the high level of customer service they have always been committed to
Solution enabled hyper-targeted marketing

Discover What Exela's Liquidity Solutions Can Do For You

Financial Planning and Analysis

Leading Financial Services Firm Transfers LockBox Operations and Employees Over to Exela

#Finance

Challenge

As one of the top 8 financial institutions in the U.S., this firm was searching for opportunities to maintain its competitive edge in a continuously evolving and demanding marketplace. Delivering superior products and customer experiences was at the forefront of its priorities. But, extensive resources were being pulled away from its core banking operations to manage its LockBox processing activities, spread across six different cities. The bank was also struggling to keep on top of emerging technologies and the latest industry best practices, while, at the same time, trying to improve customer retention and acquisition rates through exceptional customer service. Although the bank has been outsourcing other onsite operations to Exela for the past 30 years, it wanted to take the next step towards total re-allocation of resources. Customer data security and privacy were additional considerations for the bank.

Solution

To advance its strategic agenda, and leverage the expertise and technology of others in this space, the bank made the decision to outsource its LockBox operations. It sought the assistance of a specialized technology provider that was well-versed in executing large, onsite remittance implementations. It selected Exela because of its vast network of talent; versatile service-delivery model; technologically-advanced applications; and experience managing operations across multiple sites. The solution, valued at 100 million dollars, has expanded in scope to include the following:

- LockBox Processing: Exela is charged with overseeing and executing all aspects of the firm’s LockBox operations across six locations; utilizing existing facilities and equipment
- Employee Conversion: To complete the total transfer of LockBox operations, Exela added over 600 on-site bank employees to its workforce. This is in addition to the more than 1,500 employees that have been re-badged during this partnership
- Robust Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Plan
- Enhanced Governance Model

Benefits

A partnership with Exela has produced several positive results. Most notably, is a cost savings of $40 Million over the last 10 years. The bank has also achieved 99% of its performance goals. Leveraging the resources and expertise of an established LockBox provider has allowed the bank to dedicate its operations to the development and delivery of core banking products, while delighting customers with exceptional service.

Discover What Exela's Digital Solutions Can Do For You

Financial Planning and Analysis

Analytics and Automation Expertise Driving FP&A Excellence

Using a blend of intelligent automation to provide real-time data and automated processes for compliance, Exela’s Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) solution reduces manual processes, costly expenses, and revenue generation pressures. Our solution leverages historical financial data to extrapolate future sales and earnings, providing insightful predictions and analytics that directly influence business strategy and direction.

With decades of expertise in the financial space, our solution provides invaluable information and helps businesses anticipate future outcomes. Our application of automation enhances operational effectiveness, provides timely reports and analytics, and enables companies to make data-based decisions more quickly.

Plan for Future Scenarios

Our FP&A analysts map out best-case, expected, and worst-case scenarios, then identify steps to take in response to different outcomes, better preparing a business for the future. These projections can also help plan capital expenses and other investments.

Increase Visibility Into Key Financial Aspects

Our FP&A team creates profit and loss (P&L) statements, board reports, and management reports which track budget vs. actual spend by department, and statements of cash flow. This creates in-depth visibility with respect to key financial aspects of the ongoing business and helps determine the key drivers for the net profit and earnings.

Discover The Information You Want

Our FP&A team can perform ad hoc reporting and modeling to promptly uncover specific information, along with actionable recommendations to senior management. With data reports presented as needed, companies can make decisions and adjust their strategy quickly.

Determine How To Best Spend In Order To Save

Analysts parse through financial reports to determine how best to allocate spending, optimizing the savings cost for the company. Analysts will also create financial models that account for trends within the business and in the broader industry and economy that may affect revenue and profit. This forecasting helps companies predict what may be ahead and where to allocate resources.