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Centage Corporation |
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April 18, 2016 Issue |
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The Most Powerful Name In Corporate News and Information |
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Budget Maestro Automated Budgeting and Planning Software Suite Helps Small to Medium-Sized Businesses Make More Informed Decisions and Ensure the Future Health of Their Business |
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Executive Vice President and CFO
Centage Corporation
Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published – April 17, 2016
CEOCFO: Mr. Orlando, would you tell us about your role as CFO at Centage? Mr. Orlando: The role of CFO is multifaceted. As CFO, you would be remiss if you and your finance team were not involved in all aspects of the business. We are first and foremost a service organization to the rest of the company. We need to understand what is happening in every department and how that translates to the well-being of the company. We have a responsibility to provide accurate and timely information not only at month end but also during the month for such things as cash receipts as it pertains to Accounts Receivable balances, cash disbursements as we track Act vs. Plan variances, KPI’s to determine the operational strength of the company, etc.
CEOCFO: How does your Budget Maestro product help you and how is it helping other companies? Mr. Orlando: Prior to joining Centage, I spent most of my career working for larger organizations in the Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) area. We would spend 4+ months and 2,500+ man-hours developing an Income Statement budget, and then at the end of the budgeting process devote relatively little time constructing an informative Balance Sheet and Cash Flow. I have concluded that any worthy finance professional could assemble a fairly detailed and accurate Income Statement in a much shorter time frame. What we have trouble doing as finance professionals is developing a meaningful Balance Sheet and Cash Flow budget, which is critical to gaining an accurate view into the future health of the organization. The value of Budget Maestro is that it takes the guesswork out of building the Balance Sheet and Cash Flow and provides a framework for building these two important reports by tying them to your Income Statement budget, as you build your P&L. The built-in financial logic guides you through the process of how and when you will disburse cash for expenses and capital and receive cash for sales. In essence, it builds your Balance Sheet and Cash Flow on a transaction-by-transaction basis. Having used Budget Maestro for the past decade, I believe it does a phenomenal job of putting the information together and from that standpoint is the best application in the marketplace. We currently have more than 7,000 users worldwide that depend on our unique approach to help them more accurately budget their organization’s financial health without the typical cost and complexity associated with other program-based tools.
CEOCFO: Would you give us an example of something that would come to light that would be actionable? Mr. Orlando: Typically, your budget is based on a forward-looking twelve-month timeframe. Budgeting for Balance Sheet items with a guesstimate is not good enough. For instance, Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable are two of the most important aspects of your Balance Sheet and Cash Flow. To add 10% or 20% to last year’s balance by month is much too simplistic – there are too many variables that go into building these reports accurately. On the receivables side you may be building your sales budget by customer. It is much more accurate to take into account the paying patterns of your customers – one class of customers pays in 30 days, another in 60 days and yet another in 75 days – multiply that by hundreds, if not thousands of customers, and you can understand how inaccurate you will be by using a generic % increase over the prior year.
Conversely, shouldn’t you budget for expenses and therefore Accounts Payable by what your disbursement patterns have been historically by vendor or type of expense (marketing, cost of sales, consulting)? Depending on the focus of your business for the next twelve months, the variables associated with Accounts Payable again can be daunting.
Because Budget Maestro gives you the ability to Budget more accurately at the transaction level, (by vendor, by expense item, by customer) your Cash Flow is eminently more accurate and therefore provides a more accurate view of your cash needs – which is the most important aspect of planning for the future for any company.
That is the secret sauce behind Budget Maestro, automating all of the business and financial logic behind the debits and credits associated with future period transactions. It makes Budget Maestro easy to use and delivers precise and accurate results so you can confidently take action.
CEOCFO: Are many companies looking for a better solution, and do they know one exists? Mr. Orlando: According to industry research, somewhere between 70% - 90% of finance professional still use Excel for budgeting and planning. However, the number one issue with using Excel is that it has a huge propensity for errors and miscalculation. Our recent survey of CFOs indicates that approximately 75% of all spreadsheets contain errors. This is really the catalyst to seek an alternative more reliable solution.
Forward thinking organizations understand that there is a more accurate and timely way to budget that far exceeds a spreadsheet-based approach. Unfortunately, the finance department is often the last department to secure resources and funding. The efficiency and accuracy gains achieved by relying on Budget Maestro are unparalleled and more than justify the investment. When I first joined Centage I thought about what a difference it would have made if I had had an application like Budget Maestro in the past simply because it saves so much time, is intuitive and provides you with the opportunity to think more about what you are trying to accomplish as a business rather than double and triple checking your numbers and the integrity of your results.
CEOCFO: What is your geographic reach? Mr. Orlando: While thousands of users’ worldwide trust Budget Maestro, a large portion of our customer base is in North America. We are working on expanding that in 2016 and the years ahead.
CEOCFO: Why choose Budget Maestro by Centage? Mr. Orlando: With more than 35 years of experience, I know firsthand the pains of relying on Excel for budgeting and planning. Budget Maestro offers a next generation suite of solutions to more strategically manage the financial health of an organization. We focus on the things that matter to a financial professional – balance sheet and cash flow statements – and keenly understand the entire budgeting and planning process to ensure Budget Maestro supports today’s financial professionals. We get our customers up and running quickly, every day, and we continue to enhance our offering to reflect the needs of our customers. |
“Budget Maestro offers a next generation suite of solutions to more strategically manage the financial health of an organization. We focus on the things that matter to a financial professional – balance sheet and cash flow statements – and keenly understand the entire budgeting and planning process to ensure Budget Maestro supports today’s financial professionals.”- John Orlando
John Orlando Executive Vice President and CFO
Centage Corporation
Contact: Sarah Murray 781-378-2674 sarah@attunecommunications.com
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John
Orlando