CU*Answers, the Grand Rapids, Michigan-based cooperative CUSO recently announced a from-the-ground-up rewrite of the budget preparation and analysis tools for credit unions utilizing its CU*BASE^® processing system. Major components include:

• New Budget Groups for grouping G/L accounts according to sub-totals on the income statement. This grouping feature is used when calculating budget figures, and important for clients wanting to take advantage of the newest budget variance analysis tools.
• Expanded calculation methods to calculate budget figures using previous-year figures. Clients many choose a new parallel calculation that automatically annualizes and adjusts for seasonal differences, or a straight +/- math using either monthly or daily averages.
• The ability to run multiple passes with different calculation parameters to populate a client’s budget a little bit at a time. Also, the ability to perform what-if calculations on a new style of “working” budget that won’t affect a client’s real, “finalized” budget until they are ready.
• A new variance dashboard to immediately compare a budget plan to actual performance throughout the year. Flexible filters allow clients to quickly see all variances over x%, or variances of at least $10K, or performance for a specific budget group, and more.
• Upload budget figures created in Excel or another tool directly into CU*BASE, to take advantage of the variance analysis tools throughout the year.
• New dashboard tools to view the budget as work is performed, and new reports for printing.

CU*Answers also described development of a budget modeling tool, providing the capability to budget a credit union’s growth in assets and liabilities, then use them to model budget figures for associated income and expense G/Ls. They said this offering would be available to CU*BASE clients later in 2015.