Organizations have conducted the budgeting and forecasting process through a readily-available, inexpensive and easy-to-use application the spreadsheet.

While spreadsheets are good desktop personal productivity tools, they are not collaborative planning applications. As the planning process extends beyond a single user, spreadsheets fail to support a complex planning process. They were never designed for multiple users. They were not intended to be the foundation of a dynamic, shared function like financial planning. And they certainly weren't designed to provide the security required for financial information.