[TFA_Glen]

Hi,
I'm in charge of Long Term Modelling of our org's budget + forecasting and monthly reporting. FE is currently the foundation for all this. Problem is, our process is a huge XL kludge. People here created a database-like structure using XL files all over the place glued together with macros and lookup tables. Very hard to maintain, audit, and troubleshoot. Inflexible.

Wondering what other people out there use on top of FE to solve this problem (i.e. forecast/budget/model)

I'm thinking:

1. Build an Access database (but who wants to maintain such Frankenstein monsters ? been there done that) that would somehow feed off of FE tables... prolly need one of them more expensive service licenses to get back door access...

2. Get a datawarehouse solution that would feed off of FE and hopefully upload into FE. This would get us faster querying/reporting. (Is this TIE?.. I just didn't like the fact that TIE looked like a warehouse with Microsoft reporting suite on top of it...) I was thinking of Hyperion.

3. Web based solutions? Adaptive Planning - Budgeting Forecasting Applications and Financial Reporting Analysis looks pretty slick but maybe i'm being suckered by flash animations.

I'm going to try to upload a couple visio diegrams that illustrate the current process vs. proposed.

In the meantime, anybody's insight/opinion/experience is much appreciated!
Thanks,
Glen

[TFA_Glen]

I don't know if I'm posting in the correct forum, so if somebody could point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it (should this be in Software?).... But let me rephrase ...

What do you all use to do your forecast/budgeting/long term modeling?

1. homegrown XL/access
2. custom 3rd party - who?
3. FE + TIE or FE + ABM (Blackbaud's "Advanced Budget Management" product)?
4. Or?

Any input much appreciated!

Thank you!
Glen

[Tom]

I'm pretty familiar w/ ABM though we don't need it at my current org. From your post, I'd look at it to see if it fits your needs.

[TFA_Glen]

Hi Tom,
I checked out ABM and although it is integrated with FE, I found its design to be unintuitive and messy (I have screenshots to prove it). For example, it seems they've thought of everything and turned it all into a button so their toolbars have a zillion buttons. Plus, not a big fan of the client only (i.e. runs like FE as a app off a server, not web based) deployment.

We have instead gone with Clarity. it's web based and uses web excel. The idea is to provide business users with the XL look and feel, but have everything tied to a database in the back. No more macros to roll up excel workbooks for each department. Problem is, we'll need Blackbaud consultants to help us build the feed out of FE.

Glen