It's that time of year again: your FP&A team needs to finalize the annual budget for the company. Everything is looking good. You've allocated a fair share of the budget to each department, and you're confident that your plan will help the business reach its key goals for the next year.
Then, one of your team members brings you some unexpected news. Evidently, your team overlooked one crucial expense in its planning process, and now your entire budget has been thrown out of whack. Back to the drawing board!
If you've ever experienced something similar to the above scenario, then you understand how costly, time-consuming, and frustrating budget planning mistakes can be. As experts in financial planning and analysis, we've stood in your shoes before. In fact, preventing such mistakes was one driving factor behind the development of our product.
Let's discuss 4 of the most common mistakes we've seen in the FP&A planning process, and how you can avoid them.
Mistake 1: Using the wrong version of a file In many FP&A departments planning is done in Microsoft Excel with files that are emailed back and forth between team members. As a result, you'll often end up with long and complicated file names like "FY22 Budget_FINAL_FINALv11.xlsx."
The problem is, somewhere down the line you may end up using the 11th version of your Excel spreadsheet in your budget planning when you really need the 12th. All of a sudden, you think you have $1 million more to spend than you actually do, and by the time you figure out your mistake and revise the budget, the damage may already be done.
This is one area where Cobbler shines since
our collaborative budgeting platform eliminates the need to email spreadsheet files back and forth. Instead, you have instant and immediate access to the latest, most up-to-date version of your budget plan.