Which Budgeting software is the best?

The best budgeting software solution is the one you will feel comfortable with and most importantly use year round to analyze your actual accounting data against the data in your budget model. It should not rely on users supplying formulas, functions and links (similar to spreadsheet activities), have drivers and built-in business logic without any required programming.

The most important attribute of such a system, in my opinion, should be the ability to budget the entire chart of accounts, not just the revenue and expense accounts, and have the system automatically produce future period financial statements: An Income Statement, a Balance Sheet and a Statement of Cash Flows. This will allow you to forecast the future financial health of your organization, including key financial ratios and anything that a proper Balance Sheet displays, except you will be seeing your “future Period” balance sheet, one for each budget period.

I have had great success with a software application that does all that, titled Budget Maestro from Centage Corporation (www.centage.com). It was specifically designed to act like an actual accounting system for all budget periods. It is a modular system which allows you to work in distinct areas such as revenue, operating expenses; has a comprehensive personnel module, fixed assets, debt and equity sections plus many other attributes that give you visibility into your company’s future financial statements.

The software can easily be integrated with an ERP general ledger to bring in actual data at period end close and perform an analysis in nearly real time. It is designed for small and medium size companies, is modestly priced and does not require significant IT or external consulting to set up. After using it for over 12 years now I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is looking to implement a sensible and useful solution that will help its users implement their company’s budget for its intended purpose.

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