Strategic Planning Software

Strategic Planning Software

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I am trying to find some extra software that I can use on a laptop during client visits to make understanding the management accounts much easier for the client.

Many of my people aren't good at reading long tracts of words, but a nice graph or two would be much better to trigger their thought process. Yes, one can do that in Excel, but I don't have the inclination/time currently to program Excel for that sort of thing myself.

I can only find CCH Strategic Planning at present and they seem very reluctant to show their price on the website - a sure sign that it's probably over the top for what most of my 5-20 person clients need.

I know there are many Awebbers who hail from commerce and are used to providing quite detailed management accounts backup papers, including graphical illustrations. If you are one of those, do you know of any software that you would recommend that would import data from a TB and turn it into a glorious display of kpi's etc that an ordinary mortal would get excited about?

I have a nasty feeling I will be forced down the road of concocting something myself. Your thoughts and suggestions would be very welcome.

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By paul.k2
12th Feb 2014 14:09

Do you want to integrate it?

I assume you want to take the data straight from one system and display it in another.

You don't want to rekey it. Am I correct?

I know you don't want to use Excel, but one of my clients uses SAPA and we produced 4 graphs in Excel for him using the underlying data in SAPA. (where the money came from, where it went to, growth in assets and something else)

We then fed this back into the SAPA reports.

Its not an elegant solution as SAPA isn't the most accessible system.

If you are using somehting a bit more modern, including the later versions of Excel, might this not be the best solution.

 

Paul

 

www.kellysolutions.co.uk

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By bro0010
13th Feb 2014 20:56

A bit more information

Hi Moonbeam,

Can you give a little bit more information about where the source management accounts data will come from? Paul has mentioned Sage Accounts Production Advanced. There are a number of other offerings (including our own) that work with the Sage Line 50 family of products too. However, it may be that you're looking for something with the capability to be driven from a different data source altogether.  

Ian

www.onionrs.co.uk

Sage month ends in Excel

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By Moonbeam
13th Feb 2014 21:15

Source management accounts

First I had no idea SAPA meant Sage Accounts production Advanced. I have no wish to give Sage any more of my money and have not heard good things about this product.

I use Sage line 50 a lot, and at present just pull in the TB to Excel for management accounts. While it might be useful to use a product that talks to Sage Line 50, I don't see that I need a specific product to match the bookkeeping software, as I also use VT and Xero and could well use other software in the next year or so. If my TB is detailed and well structured enough, then it should be a matter of feeding in a csv type file to whatever management accounting software is concerned.

The fact that only one user has posted here backs up my suspicion that many other accountants don't use specialist software for management accounts for probably very good reasons.

I am now thinking I will have to do my own thing on Excel.

 

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By paul.k2
13th Feb 2014 21:58

Confusion

Hi Moonbeam,

 

Apologies for any confusion. I wasn't trying to suggest you adopt SAPA.

I was simply illustrating something we are doing with Excel,using what we have got.

The data structure in SAPA is rather clumsy for what we are trying to do, but using Excel we have managed to produce something reasonably effective.

I was simply wondering if you couldn't produce something usable without the expense of a specialist tool.

 

Paul

 

 

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By Moonbeam
14th Feb 2014 08:52

Thanks Paul

I now understand the context of your comments. It's interesting you are saying I'm right to consider doing something in Excel.

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