Automatic Consolidation of Budget Templates Reduces Budgeting Cycle by Days

• Functional Applications - Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP)
• Analytics & Modeling - Predictive Analytics
• Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration

• Business Operation

• System Integration
• Software Design & Engineering Services

The Finance team was creating and emailing Excel templates to hundreds of users and manually inserting received data and actuals into reports. This daily exchange of dozens of emails led to issues with version control and introduced the possibility that important data would be lost. The Finance team had to manually consolidate hundreds of spreadsheets over a span of several weeks, prolonging the budgeting process and leaving little time for more value-added work, such as discussion and analysis. The use of uncontrolled spreadsheets meant that contributors, approvers, and reviewers could make unauthorized changes to data or formulas.

One of the leading wholesale distributors of beverages in North America was manually creating, distributing, and collecting Excel templates for budgeting purposes. The Finance team was creating dozens of templates, emailing them to hundreds of users, and then manually inputting received data into reports. This process was not only time-consuming but also prone to errors, leading to inefficiencies and potential inaccuracies in the budgeting process. The company needed a more streamlined and secure method to handle its budgeting tasks, ensuring data accuracy and reducing the time spent on manual processes.

Vena’s central data repository seamlessly syncs with Dynamics AX and stores all up-to-date budget data. Dynamic Excel templates are automatically updated when changes are made to the data contained in the company’s source system. Actuals are automatically rolled into each template, reducing the need for manual updates. A powerful workflow engine enables managers to assign tasks and deadlines to particular users and filter through each budget template to gain insight into each user’s progress and the status of the project as a whole. Additionally, a detailed audit trail automatically records and stores information about user activity in an easy-to-read log, ensuring transparency and accountability. Business rules prevent users from entering data into a template that exceeds or falls below an established threshold, maintaining data integrity.

• Vena’s central data repository seamlessly syncs with the client’s GL and source system and automatically rolls actuals into the budget, saving hours of manual, error-prone work.
• The workflow engine gives management control over and insight into the status of each task in the process, allowing them to ensure budgets are completed properly and in a timely manner.
• The audit trail enables the Finance team to instantly determine who made what change to a spreadsheet or template without exchanging emails or phone calls and waiting for a response.

• Reduced budgeting cycle by several days.
• Eliminated the need for hundreds of manual spreadsheet consolidations.
• Saved hours of manual, error-prone work.