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How Runway’s integration with Puzzle bridges the gap between real-time accounting data and FP&A, enhancing the superpower of financial insights
Planning. Preparing. Calculating. Projecting. Budgeting.
Whatever you call it, the premise is the same. Whether you are a first-time startup founder or a second-time founder, taking the time to plan, forecast, and analyze your business is a key initiative in setting your company for success.
There’s a reason why Abraham Lincoln said, “give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."
This famous quote emphasizes the importance of thorough planning and preparation before taking action. Investing the time and effort in analyzing and forecasting can significantly improve the effectiveness and outcome of any business plan or growth campaign. That’s why FP&A (financial planning and analysis) is such a key role to any company, whether you are a new startup, SMB, or enterprise organization. All companies must plan.
Proper planning and analysis is what enables data-driven decision-making, especially startups that monitor burn and runway closely.
Budgeting, forecasting, and analysis bring fresh insights to the company and help startups navigate business complexities. Historically most FP&A has been done in spreadsheets or complex ERP systems like Tableau or Power BI (which still require exporting to spreadsheets). But complicated Excel models, macros, and linked cells has always been manual and problematic.
The Pitfalls of Using Excel for Financial Modeling and Runway Calculations
While spreadsheets are versatile tools, using it for important financial tasks like calculating burn, runway, and performing complicated financial modeling isn’t always the best idea for startups. Here's why:
Risk of Errors
Given the complex formulas and linking in financial models, one small mistake could potentially ripple into significant inaccuracies distorting the entire budget or model.
Time Consuming
Managing financials on Excel is highly time-consuming due to all the manual updates. Even when cells are links, cross-checking and auditing all your formulas is required. Startups, often operating in dynamic environments, need real-time, accurate data - something Excel doesn’t not efficiently provide.
Lack of Collaboration
Excel doesn't provide a collaborative platform, making it hard for teams to work together simultaneously. This could lead to version control issues and increase the risk of using outdated data.
Lack of integration
Excel files are often isolated, meaning integrating financial models with real-world data from accounting platforms and payroll systems, is challenging, which decreases efficiency.
Limited Scalability
As the business and transaction volume grow, the Excel sheets can become unwieldy and difficult to manage. Scaling operations and financial analysis in such a situation becomes increasingly difficult.
This is where Runway and Puzzle come in.
The Future of FP&A and Business Modeling: Runway and Puzzle
Runway is a next-generation financial planning platform that makes modeling, reporting, and understanding business insights easy and beautiful. Puzzle is real-time Autonomous Accounting software with AI-powered capabilities. Accounting looks backward, and FP&A looks forward. The integration of these two systems is a superpower that can map out a financial roadmap of success for any startup.
With Runway, say goodbye to the days when you'd scramble to pull together actuals from a bunch of different sources every month.
Runways brings in your balance sheet, income statement and cash activity report directly from Puzzle. Since Puzzle is updated real-time, you can feel confident in knowing that your actual numbers that go into any financial model are also real-time.
When you integrate your Puzzle account with Runway, your financials are synced in real-time to Runway’s platform. This integration automatically updates Runway with the most up-to-date accounting data that now allows for more efficient and streamlined financial planning, modeling, and analysis. This integration mitigates errors, saves time, and enhances decision-making.
Puzzle customers get Runway free for two months
Running Towards Fun Financial Planning with Runway
With Runway and Puzzle, budgeting, forecasting, and analysis becomes a breeze. Not only does Runway integrate with Puzzle, you can also sync your HR system (Rippling), CRM (HubSpot), and 650+ other business tools. This ensures your forecasts and plans stay fresh and up-to-speed with the latest figures, all on autopilot.
Here’s how Runway is revolutionizing financial planning, forecasting, business modeling, scenario planning, fundraising, and reporting.
Can’t remember an Excel problem? No problem. Create formulas even mere mortals can understand. Runway models boast a simplicity that's typically 50xgreater than Excel, making scalability and tracing values an absolute walk in the park.
Take things up a notch with Runway's exclusive feature, Plans. Get a crystal clear understanding of what's driving changes in your numbers, capturing essential business context that no spreadsheet could ever dream of - since everything is linked. With Plans, you can play around to your heart's content with assumptions, headcount, and timing using a super intuitive drag-and-drop interface. Say goodbye pulling up different spreadsheets, fiddling with cell linking, or fixing broken macros errors.
With Runway, comparing scenarios is second nature—forget about cloning sheets and tabs. Effortlessly weigh different plans and results to zero in on the perfect strategy, propelling you toward those lofty targets. Runway Copilot has your back too, whipping up scenarios at breakneck speed. Simply type a prompt and witness the magic as Runway cooks up potent plans, fueled by a potent mix of your model and real-time info from your go-to business apps.
Getting ready for the big board meeting or need investor reporting? Instead of stealing away your product designer to help you design a report (their time is too precious!) use Runway to set up a live, beautiful report. Whip up dazzling charts, crisp tables, and engaging text in the blink of an eye. And don't worry, you're in the driver's seat when it comes to deciding who gets to see what. To make things even more exciting, you can embed videos and live content from around the web. Add a touch of drama, layer it with context and you've got a captivating story for your stakeholders.
Data is important. And the ability to get accurate data and put that data into flexible models, scenarios, and forecast is essential. Like Dasha Maggio, Partner and Head of Founder Success at Felicis, says “knowing your numbers is fundamental to figuring out how to turn strategy, capital, people, and inputs into something that will ultimately deliver your vision.”
Puzzle and Runway share a mission: making business insights easier to create and understand with real-time data. Using Puzzle as your accounting software and Runway as your FP&A platform simplifies and your business operations, enables smarter decisions, and creates stronger teams without waiting weeks for the numbers to finalize.
Want to build a real-time model without Excel? Sign up for Puzzle and sync your data to Runway. Puzzle customers get Runway free for two months!
