Media budgets do not belong in spreadsheets
Bright Analytics brings planning, purchase orders, actual spend and reporting into one structured model, so every team can work from the current plan and see what changed.
For media planning, marketing operations, agency and finance teams managing budgets across channels and markets.
A spreadsheet is not a planning system
Spreadsheets are familiar and easy to customise, but they make version control, validation and reconciliation depend on manual work. The plan changes faster than the reports built from it.
Nobody is certain which version is current
Budgets move between planners, approvers and agencies. Each round trip creates another file, tab or set of tracked changes, with the current version resting on memory rather than a reliable record.
Purchase orders sit outside the plan
PO numbers are tracked separately from budget and actual spend. Checking what was planned, what was raised and what was spent means matching records by hand.
Every update rebuilds the same reports
Weekly budget updates, agency schedules and finance summaries are assembled separately from exports and copy-paste. By the time a report is ready, the plan underneath it may already have moved on.
How do we solve it?
We structure the plan around your categories, campaigns and finance hierarchy, then connect it to purchase orders, actual spend and the reporting your teams already use.
Structure the plan
Replace spreadsheet versions with one controlled plan
Model budgets around your planning structure, with versions, approvals and an audit trail for every change. Planners, agencies and approvers can work from the same current plan.
Validate at source
Link purchase orders and campaign names to the plan
Use controlled naming and PO assignment at activation, so actual spend can be traced to the right planned budget without a separate reconciliation exercise.
Report and analyse
Connect plans, actuals and reporting
Link reporting directly to planning data and actual spend. Publishing a change updates the dashboards and views that teams use for budget pacing and performance.
Share planning data
Give finance and agencies the same numbers
Make structured plan data available through the Reporting API and the tools your teams already use. Finance, marketing and agency partners can work from the same categories, periods and definitions.
What changes for your team
One current version, always
Every change to the plan is recorded, so knowing what is current and what changed since the last round is a lookup, not a memory exercise.
Spend traces back to the right plan and PO
Purchase orders and campaign identifiers are part of the structured planning model. Actual spend can be reconciled against the budget without checking separate files.
Reporting updates when the plan does
Weekly budget updates, agency schedules and finance summaries read from the same live data, so publishing a change updates every view at once.
Questions
Can the structure reflect our teams and agencies?
Yes. We model planning data around the structure you already use, whether that is category, channel, campaign, market, media owner or finance hierarchy.
How do purchase orders fit into the process?
PO numbers become properties of the planning data at the level your process requires. Consistent campaign naming and activation rules make it possible to link actual spend back to the correct PO.
Can this replace recurring manual budget reports?
Once planning data is structured and actual spend is flowing in, recurring reports can move from manual builds to dashboards that update as the plan changes.
Can historic spreadsheet data be brought in?
Yes. We assess the historic files, map their categories and periods to the model, and import the usable history so planned and actual spend can be compared over time.
Can finance use the same planning data?
Yes. The model can include financial periods, currencies, purchase orders and the categories finance needs, with access through reporting or the Reporting API.