A survey related to Excel Budgeting conducted by Adaptive Planning in Nov 2006 revealed that 78% of the respondents use spreadsheets as their company primary budgeting and forecasting tool. This phenomenon is not limited to only small and medium companies. It’s noted that amongst the large companies, 68% rely primarily upon spreadsheets as their budgeting and forecasting tool.
Despite the number of limitations in using Excel as a budgeting tool and the availability of Business Performance Management Systems (BPMs) in the market, the host of benefits offered by Excel in budgeting continued to be unrivalled. BPMs overcome some of the limitations of Excel but eroded the advantages at the same time. Hence, many budget managers choose to overlook the Excel limitations (such as cell links across workbooks) and enjoy the benefits of using Excel as a budgeting tool.
As previous budget managers, we have gone through the same pains and could understand and identify the needs and wishes of every budget manager who are using Excel as a budgeting tool and looking for solutions to undermine its limitations. We have concertedly diverted some of our resources from our key activities to research and work on fulfilling those unmet needs. And today, we are excited to see the results — a breakthrough in removing each of those Excel limitations while preserving all the benefits of the current excel budgeting method. In other words, we have a revolutionary solution that enhances the existing way of Excel budgeting!