Centage
Automated Budgeting, Forecasting, and Planning for Microsoft Dynamics ERP Users

Many businesses rely on Microsoft Excel to keep track of important data. However, using the same for accounting purposes can be error prone and time consuming. “For all the reasons businesses wouldn’t want to do their accounting in Excel, they also don’t want to keep their budgeting in it,” says Barry Clapp, President of Centage Corporation. Headquartered in Natick, Massachusetts, Centage is a leading provider of automated budgeting, forecasting, and planning software solutions for small to medium sized organizations.

Their flagship product, Budget Maestro® is a robust and dynamic application built with enterprise class functionality at a mid market price point. It has seamless integration with all the most popular general ledgers including Microsoft Dynamics GP/NAV/SL/AX suite which creates a quick and secure way to transfer data from Microsoft Dynamics software to Budget Maestro or vice versa. Centage has also introduced a new product OpenLink Maestro that creates an easy, reliable, and secure integration between any ERP/Accounting system and Budget Maestro.

The company differentiates itself from excel and other formula based solutions in three distinct ways. First, driver based planning and built in financial intelligence and rules that define spread methods, schedules and business logic on the fly. Second, direct integration with Microsoft Dynamics means you can also maintain your chart of accounts in Budget Maestro and easily transfer trial balance data at the click of a button for generatingaccurate financial, operational, and variance reports. Third, GAAP & IFRS one click P&L, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow that update automatically based on actuals or assumptions. This adds up to a powerful solution that allows customers to leverage information from their existing Microsoft Dynamics environments in a single centralized database and common interface to manage all of the elements that make up a budget plan including revenue, expenses, personnel, capital assets, and loans/lines of credit quickly and accurately for better planning and forecasting.

Centage has helped hundreds of organizations to integrate their Microsoft Dynamics environments seamlessly with Budget Maestro, in addition to thousands of users on other ERP/Accounting systems worldwide.

It has provided dozens of custom cubes to seamlessly extract information directly from Dynamics systems into reports and data marts; which can be used by finance and business users to analyze, plan, and measure their businesses.

One of Centage’s prominent success stories can be found in their work with Napa Recycling, a recycling enterprise focused on saving resources, energy, and money. With more than 150 employees, managing payroll was a big part of the budgeting challenge for Napa Recycling. Another challenge was handling its revenue from a hundred different business sources. Between locked-in municipal contracts and rising fuel costs, Napa Recycling needed a solution that is easy to use and require very little IT resource which would speed up budgeting process and free up valuable resources. The company selected Budget Maestro based on its functionality and that fact that it seamlessly integrated with their Microsoft Dynamics NAV GL/ERP.

In just six weeks, Napa Recycling was up and running on Budget Maestro and was able to abandon spreadsheet budgeting and forecasting. Now, the company uses the tool on a weekly basis to run Napa’s KPIs (key performance indicators) against information in the company’s two financial reporting systems. “Budget Maestro saved us weeks of time and enabled us a very quick turnaround on a strategic contract,” says Michael Murray, CFO, Napa Recycling.

An unwavering commitment to customer success is the key to success in any services business

Centage is forecasting a growth of above 30 percent this year. “More than two-thirds of the employees at Centage are client oriented and we are continuing to add staff to meet the demands and exceed expectations of a growing customer base,” says Barry. The company is planning to increase their BI reporting offerings in addition to improving their cloud solutions.

Clapp wraps up adding, “An unwavering commitment on customer success is the key to success in any services business.”