Workday

Workday Named Customers’ Choice in Gartner “Voice of the Customer” for Financial Planning Software Report

September 13, 2024 by Revelwood

Workday has placed in the upper right, Customers’ Choice quadrant for Financial Planning Software for its Workday Adaptive Planning solution, with a 96% recommendation rating.

Gartner’s Voice of the Customer for Financial Planning Software covers software that uses reporting, modeling and analytics functions to enable automation of the organization’s financial planning processes.

Gartner’s “Voice of the Customer” synthesizes Gartner Peer Insights’ reviews. Gartner Peer Insights has published 1077 reviews and ratings for the financial software market. Vendors are then placed in one of four quadrants – Customers’ Choice, Established, Strong Performer and Aspiring. This report covers the following vendors: Anaplan, BOARD International, IBM, Jedox, OneStream, Oracle, Pigment, Planful, Prophix, SAP, Vena, Wolters Kluwer and Workday.

Here are Gartner’s findings for Workday Adaptive Planning.

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Read the report to learn how Workday’s recommendation rating compare to other vendors in the market.

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Linked Accounts with Link Filter

August 14, 2024 by Revelwood

Linked accounts serve as the backbone of financial modeling in Workday Adaptive Planning. They establish connections between different elements of your financial structure, enabling seamless aggregation and analysis of data across various dimensions. By linking accounts, you can bring data from different models to align for your organization’s reporting and analysis needs.

Understanding Link Filters

Link filters fall under linked accounts as filters for any dimensionality you have for the model. You can bring in data for specific dimensions you want to see applied to your planning accounts and exclude those you do not. This is especially useful for CapEx and OpEx models where dimensions such as asset type and contract type are used.

Linking Asset with Link Filter to Income Statement

Let’s use the CapEx model as an example. To have the CapEx model reflect on the GL accounts we will have to do a Link. To link the model data to the GL we will have to navigate to:

Modeling > GL accounts > “Expense Depreciation – Furniture & Fixtures.” Within that account details > Type = Link > Add

Select the corresponding model you want to reference as well as the account.

Link the Monthly depreciation with the corresponding asset class in the link filter. In this case, we will apply the filter of Asset Class: “Furniture & Fixtures.” If there is an existing depreciation, link that as well from the capital summary sheet. The GL Account will show the total depreciation amount from the respective capital planning models for just assets with the class “Furniture & Fixtures.”

With linked accounts and link filters, data can be managed efficiently from different models and allows for more flexible and consistent reporting.

Revelwood is an award-winning, Platinum Solution Provider for Workday Adaptive Planning. We build solutions for the Office of Finance that minimize your risk by seamlessly incorporating business analytics into your everyday thinking. By combining the software with our best practices and out-of-the-box applications, we help businesses achieve their full potential with Workday Adaptive Planning.

Multi-Site Healthcare Organizations Rely on Workday Adaptive Planning

June 28, 2024 by Revelwood

The market for the multi-site healthcare industry is booming due to population growth, aging demographics, increasing healthcare needs and advancements in medical technology. There is continuing demand for convenient and accessible healthcare services provided by these organizations, which are often funded by private equity firms or joint ventures.

One of the biggest challenges facing multi-site healthcare organizations is scaling operations. They are often faced with a breakdown between operations and general and administrative (G&A) functions. This is particularly an issue with financial planning and analysis (FP&A), which includes budgeting, planning, forecasting and reporting.

Helping these multisite healthcare organizations with their FP&A processes and technologies is one of our specialties. Our team at Revelwood has worked with many of these organizations to transform their businesses. Here are just a few examples.

Dental

One of our clients is a dental organization with more than 240+ affiliated dental practices across 15 states. The organization provides centralized management and shared G&A services. We built a specialized, custom Workday Adaptive Planning-based FP&A solution that included:

Creating a dentistry operations model with volume-based modeling between dentistry and hygiene practices
Creating an orthodontics model with 24-month uneven revenue recognition including historical revenue and actuals
Building models for patient and volume-based revenue and staffing logic
Integrating Great Plains and PowerBI with Workday Adaptive Planning

Eye Care

Another Revelwood client is a leading provider of clinically integrated eye care, with a national network of over 700 optometrists, 300 ophthalmologists and a total workforce of 6,000 people. It has more than 700 affiliated practice locations with services that span the eye care continuum in 18 states and in 30 markets.

Revelwood built a customized, multisite healthcare budgeting and forecasting application for this organization. The solution included:

Assessing the data sources and incorporating a new SAP chart of accounts (COA)
Developing a plan to extract the data, re-map it and re-load it
Building distinct models for its optometry and ophthalmology practices
Creating models to enable budgeting and forecasting across locations, including number of patients, number of exams, number of operating days, historical price and rate inflation

Urgent Care

One of our clients is a recognized leader in health system urgent care joint-ventures. It is a physician-owned, physician-driven company committed to providing convenient access to quality, cost-effective healthcare services through a retail urgent care delivery model.

Revelwood built a Workday Adaptive Planning FP&A system for the organization. The solution incorporates:

Corporate-level workforce planning for 250 full-time employees
Revenue forecasting by clinic, including per visit using historical averages, factoring in seasonality and different reimbursement rates
Comprehensive internal and external reporting, including reporting on budget versus actuals, department levels, income statements and more
An integration with Intaact

Learn more about how we are helping multi-site healthcare organizations.

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Importing with Ease

June 26, 2024 by Revelwood

One of the key features of Workday Adaptive Planning is the ability to import data in mass efficiently, saving time and reducing errors. In this blog post, we will provide a step-by-step guide into the import process, providing detailed information on accessing import templates and correcting errors seamlessly within Adaptive Planning.

Understanding Import Templates for Workday Adaptive Planning

Import templates serve as structured frameworks that define the layout and formatting requirements for data uploads. These templates are essential for maintaining consistency and facilitating error-free data imports.

Accessing Import Templates

Here are the steps to access import templates in Workday Adaptive Planning.

1. Navigate to the specific sheet or module where data needs to be imported
2. Look for the “Actions” menu and select “Import Data” or a similar option
3. Choose the appropriate template based on the type of data you are importing.

In this example, we will use a simple Level import template found within Modeling > Levels

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Capital Summary Sheet – New & Existing Depreciation

May 29, 2024 by Revelwood

The capital summary sheet provides a snapshot of an organization’s capital assets and their depreciation with an overview of CapEx by asset type and level. This sheet allows the user to see the total depreciation, which is broken down by new depreciation and existing depreciation, as well as fixed assets.

New Depreciation gives us the monthly depreciation of all the new budgeted assets for the new budget period by month. This comes from the Capital sheet via a linked account to carry dimensionality.

Existing Depreciation covers assets that were acquired prior to the current planning version and are actively depreciating. This information can be taken from a depreciation schedule directly from the ERP system or imported into a separate supporting schedule within Workday Adaptive Planning.

Fixed Assets are the new assets that are purchased in the given period and the purchase value that will be capitalized and depreciated. This also comes from the Capital sheet via a linked account to carry dimensionality.

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: How to Filter Data for Sage Intacct Integrations within Adaptive Staging Tables

May 15, 2024 by Marc Assenza

There are many times when importing data into the staging tables for Sage Intacct integrations that I am looking for just a subset of data and not all the data. Importing everything takes time, and if you filter your retrieval in the staging area, you can save time on the import and spend that time on more impactful things.

The screenshots below show you a few ways in which you can apply some of these filters.

In Sage Intacct, the General Ledger Details table contains just that – all the details for all types of transactions, including for all time and all reporting methods.

What if you didn’t want all that data in the staging area? How could you limit it?

For starters, in this example, you would click on the down arrow icon next to the General Ledger Detail table name, and select Table Settings from the context menu presented, see below.

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A new screen will pop up with the options you now see.

In the area labeled “Data Import Mode,” set that to All records that fall within a period range transmitted. If we look down to Period Range to import, we see that this is set to a “parameter” named CurrentYearToDate.

This parameter was created by clicking on the Edit Parameter link right under the Period Range to Import. When you click on this, you then have the option to create a Period Range parameter as seen below.

Once you click on the parameter, you have the options to define what that parameter will look like and the range it will grab, it can either be static, dynamic, or a combination of both. For this parameter, we designed it to grab two years of data from whatever the current month and year is. The Start Period is two years backwards from the ending period, which is the current month and year.

Once that is in place, you can then select that parameter as the Period Range to Import and match it up against a column in the table named Entry Date. If the data in the Entry Date column is within the date range of the defined parameter, it will be imported into the staging area table.

Two years of data is still a lot of data. In this example, we only want data that has a Reporting Method of “ACCRUAL” in the General Ledger Detail table. There are many reporting methods available within Sage. If you are only reporting on Accrual data, then you only need to import the Accrual data. As such, our filter now only imports two years of data that meet the reporting method criteria. This shaved quite a bit of time off importing this subset of data into the staging tables.

Solving Financial Reporting Challenges

May 3, 2024 by Revelwood

This is a blog post from our partner Workday, highlighting common financial reporting challenges and explaining how to solve them.

Stakeholders want self-service: Reporting runs the gamut, from presenting department managers with data on how their actuals compare to budget, to showing board members how expansions or changes in the product mix are impacting margins.

Why it matters: Businesses largely run on accurate, timely financial reports, as they are home to critical financial and operational key performance indicators.

Most organizations know that their financial reporting is not as good as it should be. The reasons are many—chief among them is the perception that process improvements are too difficult and take too much time to implement.

But when you put better reporting on the back burner, you put your business at risk. Instead of looking in the rear-view mirror—a static approach to planning that reports on what happened in the past—it’s far more effective for finance teams to look out the windshield and anticipate what’s ahead.

Let’s take a look at four common financial reporting challenges and how to tackle them:

Challenge 1: Verifying Accuracy

Excel is a great tool. But the static nature of spreadsheets makes it difficult to quickly and consistently produce up-to-date financial reports, which compromises speed and accuracy. Spreadsheets can also create version-control issues when they’re routed for review or verification, hindering efficiency and security.

Even with single-user spreadsheets, lack of a centralized reporting system introduces more inconsistencies in metrics, data, and calculations, forcing finance teams to spend valuable time verifying and validating data. In this situation, it’s especially difficult to conduct variance and comparative reporting—a step that can reveal necessary course corrections. CFOs who automate data gathering can instill a greater level of trust in the data while making it easier to reveal valuable insights.

Excel is a great tool. But the static nature of spreadsheets makes it difficult to quickly and consistently produce up-to-date financial reports, which compromises speed and accuracy.

Challenge 2: Wrestling Data from Multiple Systems

As a finance professional, you’re responsible for generating clear and actionable financial data. Your company’s decision-makers must be able to understand not only the analysis behind the data, but also the actions to consider as a result of that analysis.

But one missing piece of data can prevent stakeholders from getting the insights they need. And with more organizations tracking nonfinancial metrics, corporate reports are including increasing amounts of operational data. Using traditional reporting methods to access and incorporate such information—usually housed outside of finance—creates an additional burden.

Challenge 3: Lack of Collaboration

Financial reporting should be a collaborative process, with finance and nonfinance managers working together to not only report the numbers, but to also use them to drive insights and take action. But all too often, operating managers don’t have sufficient input or buy-in to the financial planning process, and they aren’t educated about how their decisions can influence overall profitability. For its part, finance isn’t able to offer real performance insights that might truly help managers improve their results because legacy reporting tools don’t enable stakeholder collaboration.

Challenge 4: Data Interpretation

You’ve gathered the data—now you need to analyze and interpret it so you can clearly articulate financial and operational insights. The more the organization understands the story behind the numbers, the greater the chance it has to be data-driven—and the more effective you can be in getting your message across to key stakeholders.

That’s because those outside of finance tend to consume data visually. They seek more than just numbers; they want to understand the impact and implications of the data you present. For those wanting to make good on good intentions, intuitive dashboards and data visualization are a great way to build a story that clearly shows current performance, future trends, and possible scenarios. Ideally, you should choose a dashboard offering that gives finance staff the flexibility to quickly and easily deliver data in a range of formats desired by stakeholders.

What’s the Answer?

To overcome these traditional reporting challenges, you need to go beyond yesterday’s inadequate access to information and limited financial reporting. You need a system that is more sophisticated than a spreadsheet, but not so overly engineered that it takes six months to deploy and requires significant IT involvement.

The solution you choose should deliver financial intelligence that drives improved business performance and accelerates growth. And it should enable an active planning approach to finance—a process that allows finance to shift into a leadership and guiding role, instead of having to focus on static, transactional back-office tasks.

This blog post was originally published on the Workday blog.

More from our FP&A Done Right Series:

The Promise of AI in Finance

The Role of Generative AI in Forecasting

The Future of FP&A: Intelligent Forecasting

The Promise of AI in Finance

April 5, 2024 by Revelwood

This is a blog post from our partner Workday, explaining how CFOs can help bridge the AI trust gap.

Potential enterprise uses of artificial intelligence and generative AI have garnered plenty of attention in recent months. AI is the next business game-changer, but if employees don’t trust what it can do and how it’s being implemented, your transformation efforts will stall. That’s why it’s important to pay attention to the human side of the equation—and Workday CFO Zane Rowe sees an opportunity for finance leaders to bridge that AI trust gap.

“If you think about the opportunity that AI presents to everybody, it’s quite significant—and there’s a lot of excitement at the corporate level and at the leadership level,” he said in an interview at the 2024 World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. “But what the research highlighted, and maybe not unexpectedly, is a gap between leaders and corporate sponsors versus the average individual at a company.”

Rowe cited the Workday 2024 global study “Closing the AI Trust Gap.” Commissioned by Workday and conducted by FT Longitude, the survey of 1,375 business leaders and 4,000 employees across the globe found that:

62% of business leaders (C-suite or their direct reports) welcome AI, and 52% of employees expressed the same sentiment
23% of employees lack confidence that their organization puts employee interests above its own when implementing AI
70% of business leaders agree AI should be developed in a way that allows for human review and intervention

For Rowe, the study’s findings present an opportunity for organizations to improve their relationship with employees.

“It warrants companies really understanding what that opportunity is for them, but then doing a good job and explaining that to the workforce,” he said.

The role of a CFO has always centered on data and numbers, as well as how that data is compiled and used to produce forecasts and financial reports, Rowe said. Technology, he added, holds the promise of greater efficiency and productivity, as well as value creation.

“What AI can do is enable us to do so much of that in far better ways and to think about: How do we grow that business?” Rowe said.

The promise of AI in finance requires leaders to imagine new ways of utilizing data to generate growth. It also means CFOs will need to build partnerships on the road to becoming finance futurists.

Rowe added that building trust is a critical component of that goal.

“As a CFO, how do we build credibility?” Rowe asked. “How do we think about transparency, and how do we communicate internally and externally—[about] the ways we’re utilizing that data in a transformative way?

“It’s really a time for company CFOs, in particular, to embed trust with that data so everyone at the company can understand how it’s being used and how important that is.”

Noting that Workday has clearly laid out its approach to responsible AI, Rowe touted the trust engendered with customers as a result of the company’s transparent approach.

That trust component is an all-important part of driving AI adoption and doing so successfully.

“There’s no doubt that there’s a lot you can do, but it really comes down to the fundamentals of data platforms,” Rowe said. “And if you don’t watch that trust gap, if you can’t have the average employee and the average leader really understand how things are being used, it’ll be challenging. It’s an endeavor that we all have to put at the forefront and think about what to do to help scale AI.”

This blog post was originally published on the Workday blog.

More from our FP&A Done Right Series:

The Role of Generative AI in Forecasting

The Future of FP&A: Intelligent Forecasting

CFOs on AI, Partnerships and Skills

The Role of Generative AI in Forecasting

March 22, 2024 by Revelwood

This is a blog post from our partner, Workday, highlighting findings on Generative AI from a Deloitte CFO Signals quarterly survey.

In the world of finance, Generative AI has entered the chat.

In a recent CFO Signals, Deloitte focused part of its survey on Gen AI and found that “a sizeable proportion of CFOs’ organizations (42%) are experimenting with it, while 15% are incorporating it into their business strategy.”

Nearly one-quarter (24%) of respondents said they’re “reading and talking about it,” while another 17% opined “it’s too soon to tell.”

Generative AI—the technology that can take vast amounts of data and use it to create new content—has captured the attention of a wide variety of industries.

And it’s no surprise, considering the potential impact of the technology. Last year, McKinsey & Company estimated the global economic benefits of Generative AI could add the equivalent of $2.6 to $4.4 trillion a year across 63 use cases it analyzed. As a point of comparison, the report noted that the United Kingdom’s 2021 GDP was $3.1 trillion.

A Cautious Approach Toward Gen AI

Reflecting a cautious, analytical approach as a whole, the survey’s 115 respondents expressed a few common concerns around Gen AI and the potential benefits of AI in finance.

Finance leaders’ top three concerns were around the technology: “impact to risk and internal controls” (57%), “data infrastructure and technology needs” (52%), and “investment needs (technology and capabilities)” at 51%.

The findings reflect the need for responsible AI on a wide scale to establish trust, minimize risk, and drive greater business performance.

What AI Can Do for the Finance Function

While a significant proportion of CFOs are considering the risks of an increasingly technology-enhanced future, the potential benefits of Generative AI are also dawning on them.

Almost half of finance leaders (49%) named planning, forecasting, and analysis as the top potential uses of Generative AI, far outpacing the automation of routine or transactional processes (26%) and increased efficiency (20%).

Meanwhile, CFOs identified the top three benefits they hope to achieve if their organization were to adopt Gen AI:

Reduce costs (52%)
Improve customer/client experience (50%)
Increase margins, efficiencies, and/or productivity (45%)

Other potential benefits include developing new capabilities, products, or services; creating scale and/or capacity; and improving the accuracy of forecasting, modeling, and scenario planning.

What’s Needed to Incorporate Gen AI in Finance

Lending weight to the idea that intelligent finance demands a human-centered approach to AI, a majority of CFOs (63%) said talent resources and capabilities present the biggest barrier to adopting and deploying Gen AI within their organizations.

Finance leaders further said that the single most important factor in helping them make decisions related to using Gen AI are use cases (39%). CFOs also mentioned wanting to understand the ROI of gen AI, as well understanding of risks and limitations along with best practices from peers within their industry.

While widespread adoption of AI in finance hasn’t yet happened, it’s clear that it’s on the radar of many CFOs in the forefront.

“Do they have the necessary data, technology, and talent to implement GenAI?” Deloitte wrote in its report. “The survey results suggest no―not yet anyway. But for now, CFOs appear to be curious about the upsides and downsides of GenAI, and what opportunities, as well as challenges, the technology might bring.”

Workday Named Customers’ Choice in Gartner “Voice of the Customer” for Financial Planning Software Report

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Linked Accounts with Link Filter

Understanding Link Filters

Linking Asset with Link Filter to Income Statement

Read more Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks:

Multi-Site Healthcare Organizations Rely on Workday Adaptive Planning

Dental

Eye Care

Urgent Care

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Importing with Ease

Understanding Import Templates for Workday Adaptive Planning

Accessing Import Templates

Read more Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks:

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Capital Summary Sheet – New & Existing Depreciation

Read more Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks:

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: How to Filter Data for Sage Intacct Integrations within Adaptive Staging Tables

Read more Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks:

Solving Financial Reporting Challenges

Challenge 1: Verifying Accuracy

Challenge 2: Wrestling Data from Multiple Systems

Challenge 3: Lack of Collaboration

Challenge 4: Data Interpretation

What’s the Answer?

More from our FP&A Done Right Series:

The Promise of AI in Finance

More from our FP&A Done Right Series:

The Role of Generative AI in Forecasting

A Cautious Approach Toward Gen AI

What AI Can Do for the Finance Function

What’s Needed to Incorporate Gen AI in Finance

More from our FP&A Done Right Series:

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Workday

Understanding Link Filters

Linking Asset with Link Filter to Income Statement

Read more Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks:

Dental

Eye Care

Urgent Care

Understanding Import Templates for Workday Adaptive Planning

Accessing Import Templates

Read more Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks:

Read more Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks:

Read more Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks:

Challenge 1: Verifying Accuracy

Challenge 2: Wrestling Data from Multiple Systems

Challenge 3: Lack of Collaboration

Challenge 4: Data Interpretation

What’s the Answer?

More from our FP&A Done Right Series:

More from our FP&A Done Right Series:

A Cautious Approach Toward Gen AI

What AI Can Do for the Finance Function

What’s Needed to Incorporate Gen AI in Finance

More from our FP&A Done Right Series:

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