Plansmith Blog

Are you really planning, or are you just budgeting?

By this I mean, are you filling out the numbers on a spreadsheet or planning the actions needed to make it a reality?

It’s always gratifying when all the numbers come together in a neat package showing expected growth and earnings for next year. And, there were likely many contributors who verbally expressed their goals and plans on how they are going to reach them. The compiled financial targets are then presented to and accepted by the board, and your monthly comparisons begin. Budget “predictions” are compared to reality. Variances from “budget” are explained, and business continues as usual. In essence, that’s budgeting.

While the economic environment continues to shift from the effects of COVID-19, financial institutions aren’t out of the woods. As 2022 heats up into the summer months, inflation, rate increases, and an overall sense of uncertainty loom over markets. So, how do you begin to measure the financial impact today’s economy will have on your business? By utilizing a true planning model.

A professional forecasting platform for Budgeting and ALM/IRR adapts to changing conditions. As it is relationship-driven, it can be set to react to environmental changes, including rates. As the rate environment shifts, so should your balance sheet growth and product mix. Planning models help you test the impact of such changes and measure results in minutes, not hours.

Plansmith believes in the power of planning to help manage the future.

Our mission has been to provide the best tools and services to strengthen execution for sustained growth and quality earnings. Over the past 50 years thousands of financial institutions have benefited from the tools we build and the services we offer.

In the current crisis there is no better time to rethink the use of complicated and confusing systems in favor of an easier, more flexible and a more understandable way to avoid the risk of bad decisions. Plansmith provides resources including dedicated people, expert advisors, educational offerings and great decision technology components for managing your future.

In my 20+ years at the FDIC and now 8 years here at Plansmith, I honestly never imagined that all those Contingency Funding Plans (CFPs) I’ve read and written would actually be relevant. I always viewed them as a good way to layout the framework for monitoring funding risk and alternate sources of liquidity, but I certainly didn’t think that the “systemic stress” scenarios would really ever be something we’d actually be dealing with. 

For those of you who didn’t see it, click here to read the blog I posted yesterday focusing on some things you can do help your community get through this current crisis. Today, we’re going to turn our focus to what you can, and should, be doing to limit the impact that this crisis might have on your institution.

In perhaps the most overused sports quote of all time, hockey legend Wayne Gretzky said, “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” That piece of advice is usually used to inspire people to look ahead to emerging markets and business opportunities. Right now, however, I think that quote can serve as a guide for us to examine where this is all going, and how we should be planning for what’s coming next. We know where the puck has been; rates have dropped to historic lows, the stock market has plummeted, most of you have closed your lobbies to commercial traffic, and you’ve probably taken numerous other steps to try to limit the impact that this pandemic will have on you and your bank or credit union.

The world is turned upside down and inside out as we confront the unexpected challenge of a pandemic. None of us has been here before and confusion is rampant. Yet, as business leaders expected to carry on for the survival of our companies, the World War II expression, Keep Calm and Carry On, seems applicable today.

At Plansmith, we communicate with hundreds of financial institutions like yours across the country who are affected by this crisis. We understand that you face even greater challenges ahead as you try to adapt. We know you have to assess the financial impact of lost wages, increased unemployment, low interest rates and a fragile economy and we ask ourselves, “How can we help?”