Why Datarite FP&A
Why does the board pack take three days, and still end at a number?
Because the spreadsheet computes and a person explains. This does both, and then goes one step further than any platform: it says what to do, who owns it, and how you will know in ninety days whether it worked.
It ends at a decision, not a variance
Every FP&A platform on the market stops at the bridge: revenue was behind by this much, here is the split. This one continues. From a library of actions the engine may raise, each with the condition that raises it, it ranks at most five - impact against effort - and gives each an owner, the assumption it rests on, and a ninety-day test. They go into a ledger, and the next pack says what the last decisions delivered.
It says when it does not know
A figure the files cannot support is NOT AVAILABLE, with the reason and the file that would supply it - never zero, never a default. Where an industry default stands in for history it is labelled ASSUMED with its source, and replaced automatically the moment your own history can supply it. A pack that hides its gaps is one a board cannot trust with the figures it does show.
Every figure carries its formula
The workbook’s subtotals are live formulas. The appendix shows every working. The bridge is exact arithmetic: components sum to the variance to the kobo, and the rounding is its own line. Nothing is rounded into agreement, and nothing has to be trusted that can be recomputed.
The budget is built from drivers, then challenged
Volume, price, unit cost, headcount, the rates your industry runs on - the budget is built bottom-up from those and spread month by month on your own seasonality, with the balance sheet and cash flow that follow from it. Then a challenge pack interrogates every submitted line: a step change with no driver behind it, a cost that stayed flat while its volume moved, a one-off budgeted twice.
It knows your industry, and never guesses it
The engine is the same for every business. What differs - the drivers, the measures, the KPIs, the seasonality, the questions worth asking - lives in an industry pack written with people who run that industry, never from a search. A business the packs do not yet cover runs on the generic pack, from the ledger alone, and says so.
It is software, not an engagement
No analyst reads your files. Trial balances and a budget go in; the pack comes back in minutes. There is no opinion added and no sign-off - which is exactly why every figure shows its formula.