Budget and expense management in Adobe Workfront.
Manage business resources with Workfront.
Effective budget and expense management are critical for financial stability, sustainable growth, and informed decision-making. Yet many organizations still rely on manual processes, lack real-time financial visibility, and face difficulties enforcing spending policies. Adobe Workfront provides a powerful solution to help resource managers overcome these challenges.
The importance of budget and expense management.
What is budget management?
Budget management refers to the process of planning, overseeing, and controlling an organization's financial resources over a defined period. It encompasses the creation of financial plans, ongoing performance monitoring, and strategic adjustments as needed. For example, a leadership team might set a quarterly budget that internal teams are expected to follow, with managers responsible for governing expenses, driving sales, and identifying potential savings within those parameters.
The process of budget management typically involves the following:
- Estimate expenses for a specific period to form the basis of a financial plan.
- Track actual spending and forecast remaining expenses.
- Analyze budget deviations to understand their root causes.
This process of planning, tracking, and analyzing budgets empowers teams to make informed decisions about operations and investments. Budget management acts as the tactical execution layers of a broader business strategy, supporting key financial and organizational objectives.
What is expense management?
Expense management is the process organizations use to monitor, control, and optimize spending. It ensures compliance with internal policies and relevant regulations while helping to maximize the impact of financial resources. Effective expense management includes tracking employee spending and maintaining control over all types of organizational expenditure. Implementing thorough expense management practices helps departments manage their financial resources more efficiently, reduce risks, and support growth.
Resource and expense management typically includes the following:
- Tracking and monitoring all expenditures.
- Establishing and clearly communicating comprehensive spending policies and guidelines.
- Implementing tools and technologies for efficient, insightful expense tracking and reporting.
- Analyzing data to gain insights that inform future financial decisions.
Managing budgets and expenses with Adobe Workfront.
Workfront helps close the loop between budgets, plans, and actual spending while staying accessible to internal teams, vendors, and network teams. Its native capabilities support tracking and managing both hard and soft costs, along with project and resource expenses.
Workfront delivers budget and expense management support across the following areas:
Hard- and soft-cost management
- Give teams a detailed breakdown of budget allocations for each campaign, including time spent on asset creation, vendor costs, and specific ad placements.
Optimized spending
- Reallocate budget for in-market executions based on market changes, strategic updates, and available resources.
Enhanced decision-making
- Surface detailed metrics like burn rate and campaign performance, empowering stakeholders to proactively optimize their efforts.
Connected internal teams
- Clarify how the work of direct reports aligns with the financial plan and broader company strategy, empowering teams to focus on high-value initiatives.
- Provide a personalized, intuitive application that integrates seamlessly with your preferred financial tools.
Manage budgets with Workfront Scenario Planner.
Scenario Planner is a Workfront feature that accelerates business plan execution, informs internal decisioning, and helps drive desired business results.
Visualize budgets with Workfront Resource Planner.
Resource Planner is a tool to help forecast and budget resource needs across projects while giving stakeholders visibility into project demand and capacity. With Resource Planner, teams can view resources by project, role, or bulk.
Manage expenses with Workfront Business Case.
The Business Case feature in Adobe Workfront lets you request a project and define its purpose, budget, and potential benefits. Project sponsors can then use this information to analyze and prioritize the project before approval.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Workfront Scenario Planner and Resource Planner?
Scenario Planner supports strategic resource allocation by generating simplified, high-level scenarios. It helps align staffing initiatives with long-term goals, optimize budgeting to avoid overestimation or underestimation, and proactively identify potential resource, budget, or priority conflicts for informed decision-making.
Resource Planner offers a clear view of resource allocation across current and future projects to enable proactive planning. While project-based resource budgets can be adjusted, the planner is primarily a visualization tool, rather than a tool for direct resource modification.
