The Essential First Step In Store Budgeting
The first step in any budgeting process is figuring out where the money has been going up to that point. In the past, a family starting to set up a budget might sit at the table every Friday night and record every penny spent that week in a notebook with an envelope for the receipts. Now, a modern family may use an app to do the same thing automatically with each debit transaction. But a retailer has a much bigger challenge in taking that first step.
Fortunately, the ChainDrive Store Budgeting component makes the first step easier.
Store Budgeting software – Use Accurate Historical Data
Just like the family needs to know where the money has been going in the past, the retailer needs to know exactly what has been happening to the cash flow of the business. Only when there is access to a comprehensive accumulation of accurate historical data and real-time status can comparisons be helpful. Without the analysis of what has happened financially in the past, decisions made for the future are made without a solid foundation of facts.
The centralized database securely stores all data collected so that authorized users can have access to exactly what they need and nothing more. The head office can determine which data is visible across seven levels, down to a store’s assistant manager. This lets each store focus on their own unique information on sales, wage, budgets, hours, performance, and progress. The first step in store budgeting, an accurate view of the facts, lays a stable foundation for planning the future.
Set Meaningful Objectives
Budget objectives are meaningless if they cannot be compared to what has happened in the past. An analysis is equally meaningless if the comparisons are not accurate. KPI targets need to start from a specific point in order to be measurable. Every factor of retail budgeting is built on the first step of establishing what has happened in the past.
Without the integrated retail budgeting management solution that ChainDrive provides, a retailer may have difficulty including all the data in their initial store budget planning. Once the retail management software suite is in place, however, all the necessary information is automatically collected and stored securely so that access for tasks like budgeting in the future are streamlined and optimized.