Watch this 30-minute webinar on Bizview to find out how Bizview can help you achieve a robust and agile planning process that will improve budgeting and forecasting accuracy and shorten planning cycle times.
Transcript
0:02
So, welcome, everybody, and thank you for attending today’s webinar on Ways to Accelerate Business Growth with BizView’s Planning and Budgeting Power.
0:10
My name is Danusia and I’ll be facilitating the session today.
0:13
I’m the Marketing Director here at TVision, and I’ve been with the business for about five years, and I’ve got about 20 years of marketing experience alongside me, and thank you for joining me. With me today is John Brooks from insightsoftware.
0:25
John has been with insightsoftware for about 18 years and he is the Director of Solutions Engineering for EMEA. He has been working with ERP, reporting and planning solutions since 1990, in a variety of roles such as a software developer, consultant, trainer and solutions engineer. So he’s got a lot of experience that you can be sharing with us this morning.
0:44
This afternoon. A few housekeeping items before we get started… Please do use the question box to ask any questions and as they come in, I’ll ask John at an opportune moment.
0:57
If we run out of time, or if your question requires a bit more of a longer answer or a demo, we can answer offline directly and arrange it with you. As always, a link to watch the webinar will be sent out afterwards.
1:09
But onto the Webinar.
1:12
If you could advance your slides, please John and the next one.
1:28
So, here we have just a quick overview, as to what John will be covering today. And I said, it’s a very short session today, and usually we’d like a little bit longer to sort of go into it.
1:39
What we like to do is give a high level overview first to introduce it to people. With an expert integration, a fast time to value how, how it is an easy to use solution. The fact that you’ve got direct table access, and the fact that it’s a single planning tool. So, those are the five areas more or less that John will be covering. And then, if any other questions come up, please do ask John. Over to you.
2:06
Thanks very much.
2:08
So, first off about the integration, over the, over several years.
2:14
Yeah, we’ve been working with Microsoft along with our tools, and you’ll be probably all familiar with that, Jet reporting and Jet Analytics.
2:23
And, you know, as the authors of the Jet products, we’ve also gained a vast amount of Microsoft expertise on all different versions. And how to get data in and out.
2:33
And really making products that understand the Microsoft environment.
2:38
So that’s what we brought in Agile planning.
2:41
Protect the experience we gathered with products like Jet that we bought into.
2:45
And so, what we’ve done is we’ve created a link for our filing system, so that it out of the box understands the Microsoft system.
2:54
So, for example, it understands how to go into Microsoft and get things like your company’s accounts, with different scenarios. We can get other dimensions as well.
3:03
So typically, we’d look for about 10 dimension bring in as a start, and that will get your actual planning up and running very quickly.
3:12
So, the problem is, with a lot of planning tools, is, you have to define all of those things manually.
3:17
You have to eventually teach it how Microsoft works before you can start easy. We’ve done all that for you.
3:26
So, like this basic view, you don’t have to start off by saying, what’s the basic data structures basically audience sounds like so because we pull that knowledge into it.
3:37
And what we’ve done is we wanted it to be really simple for an end user to be able to get the data from dynamics work on their budgets. Yeah.
3:47
Whether that’s entering assumptions, budget input forms, actual entry numbers, pre comments, getting through approval type workflows.
4:00
Maybe, you know, getting those, that data, then all consolidated together in a way that’s really fast efficient.
4:06
Um, what we’re trying to get away from is a world where people use spreadsheets, endless amount of spreadsheets, and each project manager budgets, and approver, ends up having many, many different spreadsheets that are sent out worked on returned. Maybe there’s an arrow, wrong version or rogue number, you have to send it back into a new version come through.
4:29
So it was only partially completed it.
4:31
And you end up having just folders full of Excels at someone who has tried, manually merged back together.
4:39
Before each of the approaches.
4:41
Rather than using lots of spreadsheets, it’s actually a SQL Server database hosted, it is your virtual cloud up to holding your data.
4:51
So it’s immediately available to be reported, on, to be viewed, to be analysed without getting through.
4:57
Any of that was spreadsheets nonsense, to then try and drive the data back together again.
5:04
And you’ll have access to all of your tables.
5:06
So, we’ve actually got direct integration with the underlying Microsoft system.
5:10
So, we can get to any dates you want to.
5:12
We get into a project with which starts off hereby. say, Well, what do we want to do first? Can maybe do a P&L budget? We wanted input from.
5:20
We want to do some of the metadata and the master data matrix for it.
5:25
So we start off with that level, but we’ve got access to all of the data.
5:30
And what we really get is a tool that can then do reporting over much of your budgets in that they allow you to be really flexible and have easy actual versus budget reporting.
5:41
So there’s no point just having a good planning tool if you haven’t got a good reporting tool as well, because throughout the month, run, quarterly, year they want to see, How am I doing against my target?
5:53
Have I hit target.
5:55
Yeah. Just to add, maybe I need to do something to try and make that happen.
6:00
So, John?
6:04
We’ve already had our first question: Can BizView integrate with my Power BI?
6:10
Yes, you can actually.
6:11
So if, if Power BI is your preferred corporate standard, you might want to embed a system view, maybe an input formal report, and actually embed that into your Power BI system. I’ll actually show you how to do that.
6:28
If you haven’t got to the corporate reporting tool of choice, basically it can be it. If you’ve already got one, we can embed into your tool.
6:35
And you you’ll just see it within a frame. So I’ll show you that.
6:40
So it can be a single planning tool for bringing data from multiple systems. Whether you want to see it in this view on an iPad, whatever you choose.
6:52
So let’s go and have a look at the demonstration now.
6:55
So let me get to do this.
7:07
And I’ve left my toolbar at the top Just to show, this is just a URL.
7:13
It’s all hosted in the cloud.
7:15
There’s no workbooks being e-mailed to anybody. This has nothing to install new computers, all them in the cloud.
7:21
This is in my browser. I haven’t used Chrome.
7:24
Go to the next tab. Let’s actually show you what it would look like on an iPad Pro.
7:29
We’ll have to see what it looks like on an iPad Air. So, I’ve got different form factors, it’s just rotated for an iPad.
7:35
These are all coming through.
7:36
We can see everything still works on an iPad.
7:38
So, if we want to, you roll this out to two mobile users, Maybe if you were going out visiting customers, suppliers, and you want to have some information about filing with them, you can do that. So it works on mobile device, as well.
7:56
So, let’s go back to my, my main tab, I’m just going to press the, the full screen button so I can get as much space as I need.
8:05
So, what are we looking at here?
8:06
Well, I’ve logged on as a financial planning analysis administrator.
8:12
So, I’m the person who is responsible for planning.
8:16
I’m a resource, we’re setting out to notify people when fighting starts on to control the workflow and to be able to see people how they get behind and chase them.
8:25
So, I’ve got an overview of everything, so I can see every user at every step.
8:30
Now, when a normal user logs on the PC.
8:33
what they would normally be involved in. So, numbers, they need to enter.
8:39
Budget forms, they need to approve reports. They want to run it.
8:43
But on my homepage, I’ve got a very configurable homepage, so, I’ve chosen to have some of my favourite items, that I want to look at big favourite report or input forms.
8:53
What steps that I personally need to do in my budgeting for my department.
8:59
I might have sales. But Product Group for the last few years might have some KPI metrics down the side. Again, it’s up to you what you choose to put on your homepage.
9:10
Depending on your role in your job.
9:12
The ones I would look at is this workflow status right now. And make that the whole screen.
9:19
So, just imagine, you’ve got some, it’s 30, 40 people involved in a budgeting process, and currently you’re sending out spreadsheets.
9:28
You’ve got no way of really knowing how are people getting on, are they nearly finished?
9:33
Are they even started? Who’s doing well, who’s not? Maybe, you’ve got some business units that have finished.
9:40
Some of the haven’t even opened the thing yet, but with this view, because it’s all done from a central database and everything is tracked, we can tell you how to get on.
9:47
So, I can actually see that.
9:49
There’s nine people in the current filing scenario, a lot of people who haven’t entered a single number yet.
9:56
I’ve got 11 people.
9:58
You’ve actually seen their progress.
10:05
I’ve got one person whose budget is ready to go, ready to be approved, two who’ve been rejected, they’re going to have to redo.
10:12
The manager has looked at the budget numbers.
10:14
So don’t have another go, probably different comments on that, So they have restarted.
10:20
After having previously been rejected, we started it.
10:24
I’ve got nine people who, you’d get a gold star, they finished, the budget has been entered, submitted and approved.
10:32
So, over time, throughout our planning cycle or current scenario, to see it, start on the left and go to the right as more and will be finished, you can see how are you getting on.
10:44
Now, let’s go and see that in more detail and to do that, you shouldn’t use this tool bar on the side, and there’s an option here called Workflow.
10:52
What I can see is four for each entry, I’ve got a colour coded status code, so for example, I could if I roll down, I’ve got some things at the top around things like central drivers for putting the things like was by sales forecast going in, what’s my budget parameters?
11:13
That might be things around wage increases, taxes, insurance changing for some top level drivers, can do affect every department.
11:22
We don’t want each department manager entry to be changing.
11:25
There’s some sort of assumptions and drivers on top, might have things like an IT shared budget is going to be allocated out.
11:34
So the cost can be allocated cost and will look different business units, spread using percentages on revenues, however, to do it.
11:45
But let me get down to my business units. and you can see I’ve got different businesses.
11:49
Like Business Unit 100 is our New York Porters once said is Washington will introduce alterable, etc.
11:57
And what I can see is that covers link to this bar, getting across the page.
12:02
So I can see, if it’s grey, they haven’t even started yellow some progress, input some numbers.
12:07
Blue, ready for approval. Red, rejected. And green, approved, approvals all happening.
12:13
So if I look down, you’ll see business unit 120.
12:16
They haven’t started the employee budget or the result budget, they have put it a little bit into the P&L.
12:22
So, that didn’t need to chase.
12:24
Can see business here, 140, They’re all done.
12:27
Top, top worker, too busy, or 140 not to worry about them.
12:31
So even at this level, before we’ve actually got into a form, he’s obviously, how busy is going to give you that overview of HR planning activity, is letting you down.
12:40
Who’s done the work?
12:42
Is left until the last minute.
12:44
Cool.
12:46
Someone said that, after people are inputting this information, is there a way of having multiple scenarios? What if this happens, can we change that budget, can reset this differently? Does that work? Can you have as many budgets and as large as you want to have?
13:06
We will see a big move away from people having the old, monolithic annual budget, and your forecast for seeing people moving towards routing. So 12 or 18 month forecasts.
13:19
Do the updates, but then having what ifs on top, well actually because it’s sort of a database, that’s not the nightmare, It would be in spreadsheets.
13:27
The problem was, if you said, I wanted to have a what if, spreadsheets, someone says, Right. Well, we’ve got 30 business units, and he’s searching the spreadsheets.
13:35
I need to put new drivers of each of them and then bring them back, and that’s 30.
13:40
So now you got my original 30 by what if, 30 spreadsheets?
13:44
I want to compare the consolidated results for each set.
13:47
Now, with BizView it’s already the SQL server database in Azure or so.
13:52
We don’t have to do any consolidation, data’s already in the same database. So then, we’re just using version or scenario as a key to the data.
14:01
So, I’ve got budget version, B one, B two, and I’ve got an S one for a special scenario.
14:06
I could actually compare them to say, well what are my revenues? What was my original revenues?
14:12
I mean, budget one causes the revenues and budget to actually change. What’s the special scenario, also, what it budget?
14:18
What if this happens, how would that affect my overall profitability? What else?
14:23
Because of this you can do that much more easily than you could ever dream about doing it.
14:28
It’s also because you, I’ve got that manual work, we’re seeing a lot of people taking the opportunity as well, to move from, say, quarterly forecasting to that monthly routing review.
14:40
They couldn’t possibly have done a monthly budget cycle before, because we’ve taken 3 or 4 weeks to do a budget cycle.
14:47
You couldn’t do, what are those every month, and just take all the time.
14:49
So you get when things are working in hours, rather than days or weeks.
14:54
You able to do things much more frequently, and how time, but added value stuff, like what if type scenarios and analysis.
15:04
Let’s have a look at some data. I’m going to go into Business Unit100?
15:08
I can see we’ve got some.
15:10
For instance, the employee budget is ready to approve, so let us remember, because there was a budget by clicking on that.
15:16
What do you see on this side of the pages is he’s meant to be doing it.
15:21
So, instructions will be given, maybe I’ll go through attachments here.
15:24
Maybe there’s a PowerPoint slide about the budget process sent out, and spreadsheets, calculations, are assumptions that I want to have just recorded as notes.
15:35
So everyone’s familiar with putting a little comment on the cell.
15:39
We can attach whole documents as comments, use our coverage here at the, at the whole form level as well.
15:47
So, what I’m going to do is, I’m gonna say, I want to open this form.
15:51
Go out and have a look at the data.
15:54
Now, when you first look at this, you get a thing that looks an awful lot like your spreadsheet, and that is by design.
16:03
So what we’ve got is a layout that could have even come from a spreadsheet if you’ve got a current Excel, the usual planning.
16:11
You can import that along with the formulas into v-sphere as a starting point.
16:17
And, you know, this is the thing about BizView.
16:20
It’s designed to be used by finance departments, so when you’ve got someone who’s got it they understand your business. They know your planning process, and the spreadsheets, they went on the way to being in business, You use it.
16:35
I just go into here and say, actually, I want to switch on my view bar, or switch on things like formulas and headings.
16:42
You’ll actually see now, it looks even more like a spreadsheet.
16:45
You know, this isn’t just a random 518 in the cell.
16:49
This is actually cell, AC35.
16:53
And what we can do is, is, behind the scenes in this view, when we imported templates, we’re actually coding it up, so the, it knows what’s in Microsoft, that refers to.
17:04
So you know that, that actually refers to account number 311.
17:08
Full, that year on that month, for the new business unit, full budget version V one, and this is of errors.
17:17
That’s why we have different versions, or whatever, this would be one version.
17:21
So, this is why each time it’ll get stored in the database together.
17:24
Because it has a unique reference, you know, the effect really key to that data.
17:30
Likewise, if I go and look at this is on a row 37 vertical that toggle.
17:35
You can see a very useful spreadsheet like formula.
17:38
That’s because it is, you know, this equals the sum of the three things above it.
17:43
So you have established how these, for me, to me that’s up, let’s go beyond your spreadsheet, would have a problem now, and do some things that would typically break spreadsheet.
17:53
So the first off to note, is, this is looking at no budget.
17:57
And I’ve got some so sort of live stock inputs. Some cells are greyed out because I’m coming from another system.
18:04
This column here is actually coming straight from Microsoft, straight from your direct system.
18:09
This is saying, how much should we sell last year.
18:12
These are actual sales.
18:13
Well, this this account last year, I can see why actual is coming through.
18:19
I’ve got other cells were further down.
18:22
I’ll have a light grey.
18:24
But again, they can’t be changed here.
18:26
This is things like, in my example, is salaries, the cost of benefits, maybe health care, …
18:36
of that, because that was done as part of the employee budget process.
18:40
So, the employee budget for my business unit might be, I might have done it by myself.
18:44
Or it might be done by someone else, but the data is all being merged together here.
18:49
So, if you’ve got multiple processes, end up, getting you, the result of my business unit makes a profit.
18:56
That all comes together in best view in real time, so don’t have to wait until the end of every approaches to see that.
19:02
So I don’t, I can’t change them as here, because, that’s what do you mean, the approved, as part of my Employee budgeting cycle. But I can see the results for all the way down.
19:11
You can get down to accuracy.
19:13
How much profit I’m likely to see month by month.
19:16
I’ll just take you through account my allocation of the IT costs, like Head Chemicals, things of that.
19:24
So let’s go back to our BizView and some revenues. Well, the first thing is I might just want to put a Budget number, and I might want to use a formula.
19:31
I’ll type in x 2 so 50,000 this year.
19:37
Let’s just put that number and you’ll see all the numbers change.
19:39
Again, very issues, spreadsheet like in that regards.
19:44
And, what it’s doing is spreading that 55,000 across all of the months of the year using a spreadsheet. And these are formulas that you can create. You can just standard ones, you can create your own.
19:57
So, this is using the spread of use the same percentage versus last year sales.
20:03
So if I wanted to say, well, actually I don’t want it to be like she has, I’d like it to be evenly across all the months, it’ll now make it fit 5000 divided by 12.
20:12
Got an uneven spread.
20:14
Or maybe I’ve got a special seasonal allocation with these products that I want to use instead and do that.
20:21
But I could go into here as well and say, well, actually, we know we’re running a promotion in March.
20:25
We expect March should be double February.
20:29
But you could just go in and say, I want to have that time soon.
20:34
So now if I go and change February’s number.
20:38
To see March changes, you also see is changing the total for the year here.
20:44
So Excel would be broken by now, because you broke the formula.
20:48
BizView is realizing, oh, OK, the user’s not spreading it over here. They did something clever here for $10000.
20:56
Good to see that started 77,000.
21:03
So, you can see how the form is working actually in multiple directions.
21:07
I can do things like I can lock cells, do more advanced formatting as well.
21:13
There’s a whole bunch of things I can do there to help create my numbers.
21:17
Now, if I just wanted to save one of these, I’m just going to save it.
21:21
I’m not going to save this form is ready for approval because that would block the form and said my manager an e-mail saying, John has issued the budget, he’s approved. It should say no to that lead.
21:31
Reason I wanted to do that is, I want to show you a bit of the auditing, and this is, again, a key advantage over and above a spreadsheet based process.
21:40
I can go to my month.
21:42
I can say, Well, actually, I’d like to see the audit trail.
21:46
I can actually see that, where did this 5000 number, because that’s the number I hit the save button on.
21:52
That was entered by this user on the, the 15th of June at 11 20.
21:59
Name is done using Template B User one.
22:02
What I can see underneath it is, all of the amounts have ever been saved this budget cycle, for that number February.
22:11
So you get away from that, Well, I never put 5000 F in February.
22:16
The little bit that number came from, Well, actually, I didn’t see you did, and this is when you did it. Or Which approaches you did it, which, for me to do with.
22:24
So we’ve got an audit trail of the numbers.
22:27
We can also put in comments in here.
22:31
I can do so.
22:44
Say, Out. Loud. You get a little notification.
22:51
In spreadsheets, if you have a spreadsheet from or 30 departmental managers, and we merge the numbers together, you probably lost the Comments.
22:59
Well, they put in we appreciate those comments. Just all the central database.
23:03
So you can always see the comments for the business, each business unit, Even though than I will effectively mostly alone report, she don’t usually comments in maybe the way you would in a spreadsheet.
23:15
I might also say that actually what I want tosee the row level So I’m just usually It’ll show Hide bar here.
23:23
I can do things like, now, what else would I like to see, how they would love to see my long-term plan?
23:28
You would with less, he wrote comment. She said, let’s do that as well.
23:32
So what I’ve now got is a common field.
23:36
I can go into here and actually put in some comments, And the message was a comment on this one.
23:42
But I’ve also switch on things like, want to see my medium or long term plan.
23:47
So I might have budgeting by month for the next year.
23:51
But a single figure for the three years following.
23:54
Also, you know, much more rule of thumb.
23:56
So, I’d actually say, I will just go into here and say, I think, next, three years, giving away should be, and it’s taking the numbers or whatever.
24:08
So, there’ll be a link.
24:11
So, I can have things by, by month, things by year, I think a lot of agility, flexibility in the system.
24:20
Now, what I’m going to do, I’m just going to save this once more.
24:24
Actually, before I do that, I honestly, Special Power BI.
24:27
Somebody says, I’ve got a Power BI, corporate decision. Everything must go through there.
24:32
I can actually just go to my Share option here.
24:35
So, yeah, I’ll just share this, and draw would have just a URL.
24:39
Well, if I’m getting into Power BI, I’d take this. I’d just copy and paste that.
24:44
I’ve now got the scripts I need to post into Power BI page.
24:49
And this basically gives a window with the result budget.
24:55
And it literally is just as simple as that.
24:58
That could be other technology as well, but obviously, the generic space … is a very popular one.
25:04
So we can have as a webpage, as an embedded frame.
25:09
We put them, I will just show the edges as well.
25:11
It’s around them.
25:12
The surplus.
25:14
I’ll just add one other question. Someone asked: Can they connect to other data sources as well as Microsoft?
25:22
Absolutely. I mean, you might find this.
25:24
Um, someone’s got a payroll system, for example, and you want to have, yeah, Payroll coming in to have some costs for that.
25:35
To bring data together, you just have to define the dimensions you want to bring together individually.
25:40
And you get as many sources as you want.
25:43
So, again, we don’t like to our project two phases, I would say.
25:46
What we wanted to do was to measure pulls into Phase one, it’s maybe doing at our mental cost budget or sales revenue, budgeting or filing.
25:55
But you can bring in as many sources as you want.
25:58
And that’s real power, and that’s where it can do a lot of your reporting and analysis from multiple systems.
26:04
Again, that’s a job that’s often done in spreadsheets, because you don’t have a good tool to do that in the people dumping data in spreadsheets.
26:13
Rather do that, just bring into its units altogether.
26:18
So, the last thing I was going to show was actually, if I just say that data, I’m not sure that’s ready for approval, see that snapshot blew my workload.
26:27
So, what she was going to do is actually just go into, say, what are the reports?
26:33
I’m just going to go in and say, I want to run a Profit and Loss.
26:37
And I can go in and say, well, I’d like to run from version one these what if budgets and scenarios, what if selected, we’re running full?
26:48
And I want to do this for a particular budget.
26:51
So the business unit, so might want to include a new ….
26:54
Wow.
26:56
Couple of others down here, And I’ll press Open.
27:04
This is just show the real power of using the as your SQL database to do your planning with issue, rather than say, spreadsheets.
27:13
So, what did it show me for all of the business units I selected?
27:17
At the bottom, you see the different tabs.
27:19
That’s my full P&L.
27:21
Oh!
27:23
Business Unit 100.
27:24
For the B, one version of the budget?
27:27
That’s my Washington, there’s Baltimore, et cetera.
27:31
Then at the end, practical the Total job.
27:34
That’s my consolidated budget.
27:37
With actuals, I’m with a variation, but all of my business units.
27:42
So, imagine somebody says to you, OK, I now need to save us all the budget but I don’t want to reveal what said I want to include. So what else?
27:50
These are the kind of requests, CFOs and FDs all the time.
27:54
I’ll just go back to my selection page instead.
27:56
Right, I’m going to turn off, say, Philadelphia, But I’m going to add on Asher.
28:05
Now what a different mix of business units in search? He’s gone.
28:15
I said, Well, my audit trail in favourable.
28:17
I could drill through to see all the accounts in dynamics so that they actually came from as you drill through all my budgets.
28:26
I can actually see there’s my comment, something coming through.
28:29
Even though this is on a different report now, it knows the common link to that sort of data, and you can bring it through from it.
28:36
Different but multiple comments, So, that will be both.
28:39
So, it’s easier to go and collect the data.
28:41
BizView builds, input the data, you have multiple processes, multiple data sources, and you eliminate all the tasks around.
28:49
Handle your multiple workbooks, multiple versions.
28:52
It’s all taken care of it, use your database, and you can see it through … if that’s your preference.
28:59
So, yeah, that’s a quick intro into, into, into what you can do.
29:07
I think it’s, uh, yeah, if you are interested, be great to have a longer chat with you.
29:11
I’d like to thank TVision for setting this up for us today.
29:16
And I hope you enjoy the presentation.
29:19
So, thank you so much, John, for giving us that. I know, as I said before, when, we were speaking that, obviously, you couldn’t go into much more depth, but, this was a snapshot just to get people interested. So, as always, our webinars will be available on demand on the website in the next few days, and the link will be sent out with the recording. If anyone does have any further questions. And just get in touch directly with me, and I can put you in touch with John.
29:42
Thanks again.
29:44
Thank you.
