On the surface, enterprise financial software has matured by leaps and bounds in recent decades. Yet, some capabilities have advanced faster than others.
Oct 29, 2025, 02:32pm EDTOn the surface, enterprise financial software has matured by leaps and bounds in recent decades. Yet, some capabilities have advanced faster than others.Getty “Technology vendors’ research and development investment has definitely favored planning tools,” says James Glau , senior director of finance strategy and transformation at, an AI-driven platform vendor in the financial consolidation , reporting, and planning technology space.
“Maybe that’s natural, … but it really has left all of us old consolidators with legacy systems.” When consolidation is allowed to lag, chief accounting officers and controllers are forced to accept cumbersome workarounds and fractured processes. Manually defined spreadsheets do the work that should instead be automated. Contemporary cloud solutions can transform the consolidation process into a strategic advantage, removing manual workarounds and creating paths to faster insights that can drive business change. Here are four ways a fresh approach to financial consolidation can reduce the uncertainty and chaos around this core capability.Common processes like intercompany eliminations and currency translations frequently require manual effort as part of routine financial consolidations. And because stakeholders know the inherent weaknesses of manual processes, trust is low, and the potential for repeated effort is high. “I’ve seen many different teams receiving information, and then having to validate that information before they could actually move forward,” Glau says. “Outdated systems and manual, error-prone processes require intervention, destroy trust, and delay timely reporting.” Anaplan reports that some organizations have reclaimed up to 90% of the time previously needed to perform routine consolidation by updating to modern platforms, reducing the total cost of ownership of the financial consolidation process. Speedy, reliable consolidation also provides a strategic advantage because planning, analytics, forecasting and big-picture decision-making can also happen more quickly and with greater confidence. The value to be unlocked in finance is to shift expediently from “adding up” to “adding value,” which is enabled by a more automated consolidation capability.In the past, many organizations could get by with just one annual rollup: tactical reporting performed mid-year on key indicators. Monthly, and even weekly, consolidation is now coming into vogue. More frequent consolidation can help complex and fast-growing organizations understand cash flow and make informed decisions on subsidiary operations. “Strategically, it makes a lot of sense to align your actuals and all of your planning information,” says Glau, who describes the ability to analyze and assess current performance, validate future direction and evaluate decisions as an organizational imperative.Spreadsheets are indispensable resources, and financial professionals will always need to find creative answers to unprecedented questions. However, few of today’s up-and-coming finance stars launched their careers hoping to be tied to spreadsheets. “The talent that is hitting the workforce today really isn’t very interested in using a legacy solution,” Glau says. “Today's finance talent recognizes that current financial processes, with extensive use of Excel to get to a consolidated set of numbers, is not value-add. The analysis and insight that can be generated to drive critical business decisions is where the real value lies.” Moving to a modern, integrated environment improves time-to-results because the interface and conventions are consistent across a wide range of tasks, saving time on training and context-switching. And, in a tight market for qualified financial professionals, embracing contemporary processes helps keep employees looking forward instead of adapting to the limitations of the past. Time spent devising workarounds is time removed from professional development and participation in more meaningful work. Modernizing, says Glau, opens opportunities for folks to do what they really want to do. “They want to dive in and understand where these results are coming from and help make — and contribute to — business decisions,” he says.Getting maximum value out of your financial platform shouldn’t require coding expertise. Waiting for IT to integrate a new acquisition into the corporate chart of accounts forces workarounds that can delay proper consolidation. Asking for financial professionals to double as programmers distracts them from the core decisions they help make. Contemporary cloud platforms offer drag-and-drop control over a wide variety of powerful functions previously locked away in scripting languages and complex database queries. When controllers can customize the environment without waiting for IT — while maintaining enterprise-grade governance — they have greater control and autonomy. That, in turn, improves audit readiness and financial integrity.offers no-code customization, accelerating everything from integration of new data sources to the introduction of new compliance controls. “No-code, finance-owned is absolutely critical to modernizing the process,” Glau says. “And it is going to really transform that accountant’s and that finance professional’s job.”Contemporary consolidation on a modern cloud platform also opens the door to AI tools without the need to integrate third-party solutions. Anaplan, for example, has rolled out a number of agentic AI as well as generative AI capabilities for its clients, accelerating awareness of risks, opportunities, and possible next actions to improve finance effectiveness. Agentic AI can provide another set of capable, virtual eyes on the models and assumptions in an organization’s consolidation processes, and aid in accounts mapping. Generative AI turns report preparation into a true conversational process, allowing business users as well as financial professionals to request custom reporting in natural language. GenAI also acts as a forecasting consultant, promoting greater visibility and clarity of potential future outcomes. The two AI disciplines can work in tandem to address more complex problems like audit reports, reducing the friction and manual labor involved in tracking down the origin of a particular ledger value.As financial systems come up for review, consider a solution that promotes greater autonomy for financial professionals, not one that simply puts a new glossy finish on the usual chaos.? Or, should we add some horsepower to this process and let people?” Glau asks, rhetorically. “Get the technology that’s going to work for you. Don’t work for the technology.”
Controller Financial Software Anaplan Financial Consolidation James Glau AI Chief Accounting Officer Generative AI Finance
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