NetSuite Planning & Budgeting (NSPB) is a powerful tool for FP&A professionals. They can use it with their company’s current financial records to be able to properly forecast and prepare an annual budget. The platform is user-friendly, allowing for collaboration with stakeholders and related team members. NSPBl fits mid-sized to large enterprises looking for a way to streamline their revenue results into actionable items that can drive their annual growth.

FP&A vs. Accounting: Different or Same?

Accounting and Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) are both critical functions within an organization, but they serve distinct purposes and involve different methodologies.
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Accounting primarily deals with the systematic recording, reporting, and analysis of financial transactions. Its main objective is to ensure that financial statements accurately reflect the company’s financial position and performance over a specific period. This includes tracking income, expenses, assets, and liabilities to provide a clear snapshot of financial health. 

In contrast, FP&A focuses on forecasting future financial performance and guiding strategic business decisions. It analyzes trends, prepares budgets, and evaluates financial projections, aiming to provide insights that drive growth and improve profitability.
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Accounting functions are heavily regulated and adhere to established standards such as Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) or International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). On the other hand, FP&A emphasizes strategic insight. While it relies on accounting data, its goal is to interpret this information to inform business strategy and optimize financial performance.
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While both functions require collaboration with other departments, their interactions differ. 
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Accountants often work closely with external auditors and regulatory bodies to ensure compliance and accuracy. They maintain clear communication regarding financial records and reporting. In contrast, FP&A professionals engage with various departments—like marketing, operations, and sales—to gather insights that influence budgeting and forecasting. This collaborative approach ensures that all areas of the business contribute to financial planning.
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Why is Budgeting and Financial Planning Important?

A budget is an estimate of costs, revenues, and resources over a specific timeframe, reflecting projected financial conditions and goals. Understanding the current status of the budget enables companies to plan for new hires, invest in product lines, and set earnings goals aligned with corporate financial objectives.

Meanwhile, forecasting is crucial for businesses that want to stay prepared. As a business leader, having an accurate outlook for the future is essential. 
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For many organizations, planning and reporting can be a tedious process, often conducted in silos with multiple spreadsheets containing unreliable data, leading to inconsistent results. With NSPB, financial, contractual, sales, and operational planning can be executed with ease. 
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Although this is a vital business function, the time it typically requires often results in companies treating budget planning as a one-time task at the beginning of the year. NSPB enables continuous planning throughout the year, making it a more effective and efficient process.

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Top NSPB Features for Your Business

Check out the following NSPB features you can use and do NetSuite customization with to align results with your annual business goals.  
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Financial Forecasting and Budget Planning

Streamline your organization’s budgeting processes at both the company and departmental levels. Utilize prebuilt workflows that incorporate best practices to monitor task progress, including reviews and approvals. 
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Budget templates automatically pull and update data from NetSuite’s general ledger, adapting to changes in accounting segments. Generate real-time forecasts in just minutes, leveraging actual data from NetSuite financials to support smarter decision-making and propel your business forward.
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Using NSPB, you can simulate complex calculations for projected revenue, operating and capital expenditures, headcount costs, cash flow, and sales while minimizing the risk of formula errors that can occur with routine updates or monthly maintenance.
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AI-Assisted Data Analysis

Utilizing embedded artificial intelligence (AI), NSPB’s Intelligent Performance Management automates data analysis to enhance and speed up decision-making processes. Prediction algorithms continuously monitor and assess plans, forecasts, and variances to identify trends, anomalies, biases, and hidden correlations, enabling rapid analysis of large data sets. 
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These enable your teams to act more quickly on insights, plan more effectively, and significantly reduce time spent on analysis. Additionally, predictive forecast explanations offer a straightforward way to grasp the key factors driving AI-generated forecasts.

Data gathered can also assist your revenue forecasts and sales planning within the context of your corporate goals. You can also track actual performance against objectives and assess the resulting effects on cash flows and balance sheets.
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Workforce Planning

NPSB can also be a strategic tool for your Human Resources team. If you plan to scale your current workforce, you can use it to streamline workforce planning and its associated tasks. Such tasks could include identifying headcount, salary, and compensation planning by aligning your organization’s needs with your current employee count. This way, you can match recruitment goals with current business objectives.
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You can also use this platform to facilitate driver-based planning that links your operational assumptions to financial results. Doing so allows you to initiate a structured planning process that integrates both corporate finance and business units.
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Productivity Boost

NetSuite optimization consistently offers the ability to create custom interfaces that support specific business needs. NSPB stays consistent with that commitment by offering dashboards that can be easily created to showcase budget and actual data in just minutes. 
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The drag-and-drop NSPB report builder offers powerful, user-friendly web-based reporting for finance and business managers. The system’s secure, collaborative, and process-oriented design simplifies the tasks of defining, authoring, reviewing, and publishing financial and management reports. 
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Data Integration

Smart View for Office integrates NSPB with Microsoft Office applications like Outlook, Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. Users can perform on-the-fly what-if analyses in Excel for customers, items, or expense categories and create data grids that utilize Excel formulas and formats. Additionally, common planning functions such as spreading and allocation are accessible for data grids generated within Excel.
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Prebuilt data synchronization with NetSuite ERP guarantees data accuracy and accessibility. Current financial and operational data, along with account structures and dimensions, are automatically updated in your plans, budgets, and forecasts.
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NSPB provides essential tools that enhance financial management, improve accuracy, and foster collaboration, making it an invaluable asset for businesses looking to optimize their operations and achieve their financial goals. Talk to us at Atticus Solutions and discover what NSPB can do for your business, especially when paired with NetSuite optimization strategies.

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