Review the budget or forecast
When the individual contributors complete their tasks in the workflow and include insights into revenue and cost drivers for their specific areas, the next step is to review the budget or forecast in one consolidated model. All data is linked to the budget model, so everyone in the process can interrogate all the numbers that make up the summary figures. This information is useful at various stages during the process and particularly important at the end of the process, as it helps everyone understand what resources are needed to achieve the targets in the area that they control.
There are several ways for you to review what is happening during the budgeting or forecasting process, learn where the values have come from, and understand why certain decisions are made:
Sparklines - Sparklines represent all budget figures across the year and provide an at-a-glance representation of all your financial information. This visual analysis serves as a simple yet effective method for double-checking the budget across the period, saving considerable time in identifying trends or issues within the budget before you move forward with scenario planning. Sparklines are available in both budgets and forecasts.
Workbook notes - The notes added by a budget owner to instruct users on how to complete the budget, explain how the budget model was built or provide any other useful information.
Audit log - A record of all changes that were made by all users to the cells and workflow rows in a worksheet tab.
Workflow history - The progress and history of the workflow, including any comments that were added.
Workflow comments - The comments added by users when they assign, submit or reject a task in the workflow.
Cell history - A record of all changes made to the values in a worksheet.
Cell comments - The comments added by users when they make changes to the values in a cell in the worksheet.
Transactions - The transactions in the underlying database that make up each value in the budget (or forecast) grid.
