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Using Cascade Planning

Last Updated 3/20/2011 10:52 PM

Maxiplan is a web based tool that allows organisations to collect, consolidate, report and analyse their performance and plans. If your organisation has just started using Maxiplan, it is likely that you were previously using spreadsheets to perform this task. Spreadsheets are an excellent personal productivity tool but were never designed to handle the requirements of data collection and consolidation in the manner required for an effective budgeting and forecasting process.

If one of your roles is to provide input to the budget or forecasting process, then previously you quite likely would have had to enter data into a spreadsheet sent to you by a budget administrator. This was probably sent to you as an email attachment, which you then completed and sent back as an email attachment. The person responsible for administrating this process, would likely receive similar spreadsheets from a number of other contributors and would then need to consolidate all of these spreadsheets for management to review. This process would be carried out across all functions of the business across several locations, and during the budget period may need to be carried out multiple times. This whole process of sending out templates via email, completing and sending them back, and then consolidating results is a very tedious process and is often prone to errors.

With Maxiplan the process is much faster, in fact it is virtually instantaneous. There is no sending and receiving off email attachments and by simply logging in via a browser, contributors can access a spreadsheet style input template online in the browser. And once the contributor has entered data or made changes they submit their data, which is immediately consolidated and results are available online. This enables decisions to be made much faster, and because the whole process is automated, it is likely to be more accurate.

This guide is designed to help you understand how to navigate your way around the Maxiplan system and use the features available within the system. All you require to access the system is a PC or Notebook with a suitable web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox or Google Chrome) and the Java Runtime installed.