For our part, Buttonwood Group consultants wracked our brains over the interface obstacle and ended up joining with a software developer to create a product called BudgetPak, which embodies our beliefs about what makes the budgeting process intuitive for people outside of finance. While BudgetPak is alone in being vendor-agnostic (it can work in conjunction with any other financial or BPM system), it is not the only application to take a step in this direction. Some large, well-established vendors are working on developing budget agents as well. SAP's Express Planning breaks down the planning process into a few major tasks, asking users to click on the action they would like to take next. SAP gave thoughtful consideration to the correct progression of tasks, and that is precisely what users see. Hyperion's Workforce Planning is focused exclusively on the planning of employee-related expenses, such as bonuses, fringe benefits, overtime, and merit increases, but it uses forms that are more intuitive than a simple spreadsheet grid. And Microsoft's PerformancePoint Server, due out later this year, will take advantage of some features originally developed for the Vista Office suite. Performance­Point will replace static drop-down menus and toolbars with a "ribbon" loaded with options that dynamically change according to what the user is poised to do next. This navigation system should make Performance­Point easier for casual users to find their way around.

All of these advancements can help move budgeting tools in a TurboTax direction, which should make it easier for nonfinance managers to generate a well-thought-out budget. With increased participation from the front lines would come a significant reduction in the need for rework driven by communication problems. Perhaps more important, the increased sense of ownership among operations managers could improve the management of expenses. Given today's highly competitive environment, that could mean the difference between healthy and anemic profit margins.

A more intuitive interface does not entirely ensure, of course, that managers will actually use the finance department's budgeting tool of choice. For that, finance's best bet is to involve line managers in the BPM vendor selection process. They are the internal customers of the budgeting and planning process and so are crucial to the selection of an appropriate software application.

Finance teams rethinking their performance management processes should also keep in mind that no matter what application is in place, a budget is only as good as the thought that goes into it. The key to getting good budgets is to encourage the people who actually spend the money to think about their goals and their needs in managerial, rather than strictly accounting, terms. To get to that result, finance needs to think more iPod than Excel when designing or purchasing a budgeting system.