In 1992 a professor named Robert Kaplan and a consultant named David Norton created a measurement system called The Balanced Scorecard.  A reason for creating The Balanced Scorecard was to go beyond financial statements in measuring what businesses do in order to improve performance.

Spreadsheets are a great tool to build and maintain ad-hoc calculations, quickly draft a business plan and create good-looking reports. But when it comes to planning and budgeting in a complex business environment the flexibility of spreadsheets is often quick to become an obstacle instead of an asset in your planning process.

Financial Planning is a process of thinking. One of the end results from this process is a product called a budget. A budget is a product that expresses thoughts. As a product a budget must be created and its creation must have a foundation. The foundation for creating a budget is answers to three basic questions.

Among the difficult subjects for FP&A and management, there is the very “sensitive” relation between budget or forecast and managers compensation scheme. 

When preparing the implementation of a planning and forecasting system I am often asked if we can just take the existing spreadsheet solution and squeeze this into the new system. Invariably my answer is: Yes, we can do this, but we should not. Why?

Financial Planning is seen as a service however seeing Financial Planning as such limits its value-added capabilities. Financial Planning creates products that help people maximize wealth. There are two products created from Financial Planning for this task.