Financial planning allows enterprises to shape their fiscal goals and take steps to optimize financial and business performance. This approach is forward-looking and is used to help the company in achieving its strategy. According to an established business accountant Highlands Ranch professional, financial planning includes long-term plans, scenario modeling, budgets and annual forecasts, ad-hoc reports and analyses, which are best to be left in the hands of a professional business financial planner, because the process is more complex than it used to be in the past and, if done properly, it brings important benefits.

Currently, financial planning is based on data. It has gone from a regular activity, to an ongoing and connected process, becoming more and more predictive, incorporating data science and also using methods and practices to focus not only on what has happened or is happening in the present, but also on how it is happening and on what the future is likely to bring.

Over the years, financial planning has evolved, from a manual, human-input process to a data-driven process, which can also be helped by AI, machine learning and other advanced technologies. In the past, planning and forecasting decisions were based on historical trends; now the predictions are based on multiple data types, scenarios and trends, for an even more flexible, and accurate planning process.