Stop overlooking data visualisation for financial planning

Financial data is inherently complex, spanning multiple data sources, formats, and time periods. Without effective data visualisation, it's nearly impossible to derive clear insights and make sound decisions. Data visualisation transforms rows and columns into patterns, trends, and outliers that the human brain can quickly process. If you're not leveraging visualisation in financial planning, you're overlooking a mission-critical tool.

Data visualisation highlights financial patterns and outliers 

At its core, data visualisation allows our pattern recognition abilities to find the signals in financial data that would otherwise be obscured in spreadsheets or database tables. Well-designed visuals instantly surface things like seasonal spending spikes, growth trajectory changes, expense anomalies, and more. The human eye is incredibly efficient at isolating these important data features when information is encoded visually.

For example: 

• A simple line chart of monthly revenue could reveal a predictable seasonal slump, the impact of a marketing campaign, or a concerning plateau and stagnation. 

• A bar graph of expenditures could highlight unnecessary spikes in specific cost categories. 

• A scatter plot could expose diseconomies of scale kicking in at certain volume levels. 

Without visualisation, you'd have to meticulously comb through rows and columns to even begin noticing these types of crucial data patterns and outliers.

Visualisations make complex data more accessible

Financial data and analyses are often complex, making it difficult for stakeholders across different roles and backgrounds to engage with the numbers effectively. Data visualisation bridges this gap by transforming abstract data into visual representations that are more universally accessible and intuitive.

For example, a dashboard displaying key performance indicators, revenue waterfalls, projections, and sensitivity analyses in chart form creates a shared perspective. Financial experts can use these visuals to narrate the full financial story, while non-finance collaborators can internalise the implications through recognisable graphs and visualisations.

With visuals like charts and dashboards, different teams can collectively review the data together. They can ask questions, dig into root causes, and get on the same page about performance drivers, risks, and opportunities. Data visualisation takes quantitative complexity and makes it collaborative. Everyone can productively discuss the visualised insights, building shared accountability for finances.

Boost comprehension with data visualisation

Many people consider themselves to be visual learners. Presenting static data in the form of pie charts instead of an Excel spreadsheet makes intuitive sense. Using data visualisation reduces the chances of your audience misinterpreting the data and ensures your company's decision-making is backed by accurate comparisons and insights. Bulk data can be especially painful to analyse without visual aids, and this can present an issue when there is a time crunch on important decisions. In many businesses, time is literally money, and that's especially the case if you have to follow trends and quickly adjust to new client needs. Being able to transform tedious numbers into a coherent picture is crucial for agile business leaders and their data-driven decision-making process.

Charts and graphs enable data-driven decision-making

In addition to uncovering insights, data visualisation is fundamental to putting them into action. Being able to quickly model different scenarios and see forecasts and parameter adjustments visually is crucial for making data-driven decisions, rather than operating based on gut instinct or anecdotal evidence.

For example, a finance team can use an interactive visualisation to model outcomes of potential moves like opening a new office, changing pricing structures or adjusting budgets. 

They can instantly visually grasp impacts across all integrated data. Without visualisation, that type of quick what-if analysis is simply not possible with just rows of data. The organisation operates in the dark without that data-driven guidance.

Interactive visualisations allow deeper financial exploration

Static charts only skim the surface of data visualisation’s full value. True insight comes from the ability to interactively explore data, dynamically filtering, disaggregating, and seeing details rendered visually in real time based on the questions you ask. This pursuit of visual data inquiry is key to finding non-obvious financial opportunities and risks.

A prime example is being able to drill down from a high-level budget visualisation into the underlying transaction data, perhaps revealing wasteful vendor contracts, operational bottlenecks, or cost-inefficient processes hiding in the details. 

Another example is interactive customer analytics, where visualisation allows you to segment and cross-filter by every dimension to discover underserved customer cohorts, viewing their financial profiles to assess potential upside.

Reveal strengths and weaknesses with data visualisation 

Data visualisation makes it very easy to recognise patterns or identify red flags throughout your organisation's finances. It can help you discover which processes or products are working profitably, and which ones are operating at a loss or need optimisation. A typical financial report or statement contains hundreds, if not thousands, of numbers that all correlate and form one comprehensive picture. Data visualisation helps you filter the data and cancel out the unnecessary noise. It makes it easier for finance professionals to spot inefficiencies and make strategic and tactical decisions based on measurable progress and growth indicators.

Plan for the future with data visualisation 

An essential role of data visualisation in financial planning is highlighting where you can cut costs and optimise future processes. You can portray and analyse every income and expense line item with data visualisation tools, from recruitment expenses to tax obligations. For instance, you could track and visually compare recruiting efforts across different channels to see what works and what doesn't. Or you could calculate your current and future overhead expenses at a glance. Data visualisation empowers organisations to make informed decisions about future financial strategies.

Leverage explorative and explanatory visualisation 

There are two specific data visualisation approaches that are effective at surfacing the big-picture financial outlook: explorative and explanatory (or narrative) visualisation: 

• Explorative visualisation will help you connect the dots and find the underlying story within the complex data.

• Explanatory (or narrative) visualisation is how you present that data-driven narrative compellingly to stakeholders of any background. 

Data professionals understand how to combine these approaches to create a visualisation experience that both uncovers key insights and communicates them in an engaging, universally understandable way.

Proper data visualisation is essential

In today's digital age, overlooking the power of data visualisation in financial planning is a critical oversight. Visualisation isn't just a nice-to-have reporting aid, but a strategic capability for uncovering opportunities and risks, making sound decisions, and powerfully communicating insights. Organisations that continue treating data visualisation as an afterthought will increasingly fall behind those that embrace it as finance's most vital tool.