In our Did You Know series we’ve been sharing many interesting facts about some of our most popular features and enhancements. The next set of products and features we want to highlight is Spotlight Forecasting, which can help save businesses, raise capital and more. In fact, it is rated one of the top Reporting and Forecasting tools in the Xero marketplace.
Spotlight Forecasting and Scenarios: Did You Know
Forecasting has long been a firm favourite for businesses and accountants across the globe, and since the onset of the pandemic demand for such tools has only increased, with businesses relying on forecasts to see them through troubled times. With Spotlight Forecasting, users can seamlessly import financial data, build forecasts and surface KPIs and loan covenants to assist with decision making.
Did you know that Forecasting is the first step to understanding how your business can not only survive but level up? One particular feature that is interesting, and often not talked about enough, is our Comparison Pages. These allow you to compare actuals to forecasts, and track progress. The goal of this is to prepare the business for various scenarios, providing a true picture of present day finances and predicting how they will look in the future. This can help your business prepare, plan and, if necessary, make the right decisions to stay afloat.
Scenario Planning: Plan for now, save for later
A very powerful and often overlooked feature of Spotlight Forecasting is Scenario Planning. This functionality allows users to create multiple scenarios from a business's initial budget.This enables you to test various theories or ‘what if’ scenarios for your clients, without having to create multiple forecasts from scratch.
As advisors and business leaders will know, there can be many obstacles in life, whether that be a financial crisis, a global pandemic or a significant loss in earnings due to business hardship. With budget and cash flow forecasting locked in, plugging in certain scenarios such as pricing changes or new revenue lines, can help your business focus on what really matters, now and into the future.
What’s more, businesses can lock in any expected scenarios of a likely future, but can also imagine what they could achieve with an ‘aspirational’ scenario. This can be a massive game-changer, especially if the advice and recommendations lead to the business not only mitigating risk but achieving aspirational outcomes.
"If accountants aren't doing cash flow forecasting for their clients, they're missing out on a huge opportunity to deepen their relationship and add value. With Spotlight Forecasting, we're trying to empower accountants to provide a future view to solve many of the challenges that businesses face."
Richard Francis, Spotlight Reporting CEO and CA
Looking ahead with confidence
By helping clients look ahead with confidence and putting in place basic cash flow maximisation strategies, Spotlight Forecasting aids in both essential and high value activities for accountants.
Another fact that you may not know, or at least be surprised by, is that many accountancy forms leave cash flow forecasting out of their toolset. This may be because it hasn’t been asked for or causes additional workloads, which of course, as we know, can be a big challenge for a busy accountant. With this in mind, we find that providing a solution that is easy to use, easy to understand and can get things done quickly, is extremely beneficial for accountants and businesses.
Discover Spotlight Forecasting today.
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