Enterprise Planning Research, Architectural Guides & Blueprints
Pragmatic, battle-tested publications for CFOs, FP&A leaders, and operations architects navigating the transition from fragile spreadsheets to modern connected planning.
Hours, Not Months: The Fast-Track Series
How mid-market finance teams deploy enterprise-grade star schemas, live financial statements, native ERP data flows, and driver planning in hours — without the multi-month consulting tax.
Flagship Architectural Publications
Comprehensive studies featuring empirical benchmarks, data schemas, and 30-day implementation frameworks.
The Mid-Market Connected Planning Blueprint
How organisations with 100 to 1,500 employees eliminate manual latency between the ERP general ledger and operational drivers — on one unified platform.
The 2026 Mid-Market Planning Landscape
What published evidence says about spreadsheet dependency, forecast accuracy, the close, and the distance between AI intent and real adoption.
Full Research & Tactical Playbook Catalog
Zero fluff. Real equations, worked cases, schema tables, and architectural explanations from practitioners.
AI Forecasting & Mathematical Optimization in Enterprise Planning
“Predict the demand. Then decide what to do about it.”
AI forecasting and mathematical optimization are two different questions with two different kinds of answer. Most mid-market planning tools attempt neither seriously; the few that do sell them as separate products. This article explains both, in plain terms, and shows how they run inside EAConnect Planning on the same tables — with every number traceable to its cause.
In-Built iPaaS: Visual Data Pipelines & Keeping Data in Step
“The integration layer is not a separate project.”
Most mid-market planning initiatives stall at the same place: getting data out of the ERP, the HRIS and the CRM and into the planning model, reliably, every night. That work is usually bought as a second product, built by a second team, and scheduled as a second project. EAConnect puts it inside the planning platform.
The Mathematical Anatomy of Driver-Based Modeling
“Stop guessing line items. Model the arithmetic of the business.”
A line-item plan asks eight hundred questions nobody can answer — what will travel be in month nine? A driver-based plan asks thirty that somebody can: how many people, at what cost, hired when; how many customers, at what price, churning at what rate. This article sets out the mathematics of driver-based modeling in plain terms.
Governed AI Agents in Continuous Enterprise Planning
“An agent that watches the numbers while you are not looking.”
A chatbot answers questions about your plan when you ask. An agent asks its own questions, on a schedule, with the permissions of a named person, and files what it finds where someone will act on it. AI is native across EAConnect Planning — with deterministic review gates, slice locks, and complete audit logging.
The Death of the Annual Budget: Continuous 18-Month Rolling Forecasts
“The annual budget is a photograph. Run the business on a moving picture.”
An annual budget is built in the autumn from the assumptions of the autumn, and it is measured against for the next fifteen months. By the first quarter close, the assumptions have moved and the document has not. This article explains why growing companies replace the budget-as-forecast with a continuous 18-month rolling forecast.
The 30-Day Transition Playbook: From Excel Sprawl to a Governed Go-Live
“From Excel sprawl to a governed go-live in thirty days.”
Planning implementations are quoted in quarters because they are run like software projects: discovery, design, build, test, cutover, in sequence, by a partner. This playbook sets out the four-week path a mid-size company can actually run — first value on files in hours, a modelled application in days, live sources in week three, a governed go-live in week four.
The Model Context Protocol in Corporate Finance
“Let the AI ask the planning model directly — on your terms.”
Large language models are good at reasoning over data and bad at getting it. Most "AI for finance" bridges that gap by pasting spreadsheets into a chat window, which loses the structure the numbers live in and every control that governed them. The Model Context Protocol is the open standard that lets an AI client query a system the way a governed user would — through named tools, with the caller's own permissions, audited.
Precision Headcount Planning: Modeling Ramp Delays & Compensation Bands
“Payroll is most of your cost base. Plan it by the position, by the month.”
In a mid-size company people are the largest line in the plan and the one most often modeled with a shortcut — headcount times an average salary. The shortcut is wrong in every month and roughly right for the year, which is the worst combination for a cash forecast. This article sets out how to plan headcount precisely: by position rather than person, with compensation bands, hiring lags, ramp, recruiter fees and bonus attainment modeled as what they are.
Excel Still Multiplies What Your Planning Platform Can Do
“Excel still multiplies what your planning platform can do.”
A modern planning platform does not make Excel obsolete. It makes Excel better — if the two work on the same numbers. EAConnect Planning gives finance teams a full web experience: driver-based models, input forms, workflows, dashboards and an AI assistant. Yet on any given Monday most of the same people still have a spreadsheet open. That is not a failure of adoption; it is a sign that Excel does a different job, and does it well. This article explains why Excel keeps its place next to a comprehensive planning UI, and how the EAConnect Excel add-in lets a team use both without copying numbers between them.
From Natural Language to Production Planning Models: The AI Design Assistant
“Describe the application. Review the design. Apply it.”
Configuring a planning application has always meant clicking through a dozen admin screens, one object at a time, with nobody able to say afterward exactly what was built or whether it still matches the design. EAConnect's Solution Builder replaces that with a single design document — generated from CSVs, a requirements file, a mockup, a template or a conversation — that is validated, diffed, approved, applied in dependency order, and verified against the live application. This article explains how it works, what "verified" actually means, and why the honest speed claim is days per build, not minutes.
The Mid-Market Connected Planning Blueprint
“The Mid-Market Connected Planning Blueprint”
How organisations with 100 to 1,500 employees eliminate the manual latency between the ERP general ledger and the operational drivers that actually run the business — and the reference architecture that makes it possible on one platform.
The 2026 Mid-Market Planning Landscape: A Practitioner's View
“The 2026 Mid-Market Planning Landscape: a practitioner's view”
What the published evidence says about how finance teams plan in 2026 — spreadsheet dependency, forecast accuracy, the close, the distance between AI intent and AI in use, and what the tooling market actually costs and takes to deploy.
From Three CSV Files to a Full Finance Stack — in Hours, Not Months
“From three CSV files to a full finance stack — in hours, not months.”
How EAConnect turns a plain GL export into financial statements, executive dashboards and a working planning application — in hours, not months.
ERP to Live Financial Statements, Without an Integration Project
“ERP to live financial statements, without an integration project.”
In Part 1 a finance team built statements, a dashboard and a planning app from three CSV files. This article removes the files and connects the platform directly to the ERP — in hours, without a separate integration product or integration team.
The Features You Were Told Needed a Bigger Platform
“The features you were told needed a bigger platform.”
A tour of ten capabilities that mid-market finance teams are usually quoted seven-figure implementations to achieve — and that are built into EAConnect as standard, running on the same models as your reporting.
What the Whole Stack Costs: One Platform Versus the Sum of the Parts
“What the whole stack costs — one platform versus the sum of the parts.”
The series has shown what a mid-market finance team can build with EAConnect in hours: a star schema, live statements, dashboards, an operational planning app, native ERP integration, and ten enterprise capabilities. Here is what that footprint actually costs — alongside the five-vendor alternative it replaces.
Put Connected Planning Theory into Practice
Eliminate fragile spreadsheets and disconnected megasuites. Pair directly with an EAConnect Senior Planning Architect to ingest your ERP and roll out live models in under 30 days.