Revolutionizing Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) with Incorta + Workday Adaptive Planning

FP&A is about far more than simply collecting numbers for a budget. FP&A is a strategy team, foundational to helping drive a unified vision across an organization. Fundamentals in process and access to the foundational business data are the key differentiators in success.

The value in your FP&A investments is in how it extends your ability to make data accessible to drive answers to daily business questions (analytics) and how it reduces the demand on the personnel resources to get that information. There is no single feature or function that drives success. FP&A is successful when it helps the broader enterprise:

• Coalesce & Communicate Vision
• Focus on Strategy
• Optimize Profitability
• Help Drive Compliance

The value of any platform or tool is found in how it simplifies these processes. Until you do this well, nothing truly works - not reporting, not ML. The demand for strategic, data-driven insights is outpacing traditional, tactical FP&A practices.

This  transformation is exemplified by the partnership between Incorta and Workday Adaptive Planning, redefining the FP&A landscape

Challenges in Traditional FP&A

FP&A leaders are at the forefront of this evolution, tasked with enhancing the accuracy of financial forecasts and budgets. To achieve this, they need comprehensive and detailed insights into the financial and operational data that drives their organizations. These insights empower FP&A teams to analyze data effectively, inform stakeholders, and take precise actions. However, the complexity lies in accessing complete, business-ready data from diverse sources in a timely and cost-effective manner. 

Challenges facing FP&A leaders today include:

1. Comprehensive Data Access: Navigating multiple operational and financial systems to access a consolidated view of complete data.

2. Real-Time Insights: Identifying supply chain, inventory, and cashflow bottlenecks as they occur.

3. Transactional Details: Gaining visibility into transactional details to analyze variances, trends, and anomalies.

4. Leveraging AI/ML: Harnessing the power of AI and machine learning to boost productivity and forecasting accuracy.

It's important to note that the data accessibility challenge is pervasive. A 2022 global Workday survey revealed that only 12% of organizations have fully accessible data for those who need it. This scarcity of accessible data further underscores the urgency for a transformative solution.

Workday Adaptive Planning & Incorta 

Workday Adaptive Planning with Incorta provides a groundbreaking yet simple solution to these challenges. Incorta offers a purpose-built operational data lake for the finance and accounting team. Workday Adaptive Planning and Incorta seamlessly connect to form a complete solutions platform. With the combined solution, FP&A teams gain the ability to take control of their financial planning and analysis.

With Incorta and Workday Adaptive Planning, FP&A teams accomplish:

1. Elevated Accuracy: FP&A teams can significantly enhance the precision of profit and loss (P&L) models, workforce plans, and scenario analysis, ensuring that their financial forecasts are accurate and future oriented.

2. Immediate Access: With Incorta, FP&A leaders can access detailed data from various sources, including point of sale (POS), customer relationship management (CRM), general ledger (GL), inventory, and operational systems in real-time. This empowers them with immediate insights to drive better decision-making.

3. Subledger and Operational System Visibility: FP&A teams can drill down into subledger/operational details to investigate variances and identify the drivers with a financial impact, eliminating guesswork from the equation.

4. Data On Demand: FP&A professional must have data on demand. It cannot be yesterday’s data or last weeks. It must be available on request, immediately. Incorta provides incremental, comprehensive data refreshes in seconds and minutes not hours and days. With instant access to the latest actuals, FP&A teams can quickly adjust forecasts and align scenario plans, ensuring they stay agile and responsive to changing business dynamics.

In the pursuit of heightened forecast accuracy, FP&A leaders are now equipped with a comprehensive and detailed view of financial and operational data. Incorta and Workday Adaptive Planning eliminate the challenges of accessing complete, decision-ready data from disparate sources.