2025 Planning isn’t about the budget. It’s about the business.

It’s already mid-2025.

If you’re still running off the plan you made last October, odds are it doesn’t match reality anymore. Markets shifted. Hiring plans changed. A new initiative launched — or stalled. And yet, your spreadsheet still says the same thing it did eight months ago.

It doesn’t have to be like this.

2025 planning isn’t a one-time event. It’s a continuous process — one that evolves as your business does.

This guide walks through what that looks like — and how finance teams are using Runway to rebuild their 2025 plans in real time. To make smarter decisions, faster. And to help their orgs stay aligned, even when things change.

1. What is 2025 planning — and why does it matter now?

2025 planning isn’t just budgeting.

It’s building a financial operating system for the year ahead — one that aligns your team, stress-tests your assumptions, and gives leadership a real grip on the future.

Done right, it helps you:

• Align teams around resources and tradeoffs
• Surface risks before they become surprises
• Build trust through shared visibility
• Adapt the moment new information hits

But most teams still plan in outdated tools. A survey of 80+ financial professionals shows most still depend heavily on spreadsheets for budgeting and forecasting. The result: brittle budgets, delayed decisions, and missed opportunities.

Runway's collaborative planning platform centralizes your data, enables real-time teamwork, and maintains version control — turning planning from a painful chore into a strategic advantage.

Integrate rolling forecasts to update your plan continuously.

2. How do I build an accurate 2025 budget in Runway?

Start with what you already know. Then build around what could change.

Here’s how teams typically structure their planning in Runway:

1. Import historical actuals - from 750+ platforms, including NetSuite, QuickBooks, and Salesforce
2. Select a template - use pre-built models that reflect how your business works
3. Set key assumptions - revenue drivers, expense ratios, and growth targets
4. Loop in stakeholders - each department inputs and owns their plan
5. Review and refine - Test assumptions and adjust as needed

With Runway's intuitive modeling, you can drill into line items, add descriptions to specific drivers, and compare budget versions side-by-side. This transparency helps teams understand not just the numbers, but the thinking behind them.

3. How do I build and compare multiple scenarios for 2025?

Static plans collapse under uncertainty. Scenario planning gives you the flexibility to respond instead of react.

Here’s how Runway helps:

• Start with your base case (e.g., “2025 Budget”)
• Branch scenarios from it: Conservative, Optimistic, Break-Even
• Adjust drivers like sales headcount, churn, pricing
• Compare outcomes side-by-side — across burn, runway, EBITDA, ARR

In Runway, every version lives in the same model — no duplicate files, no rework. Just clarity.

4. What metrics should I track while planning for 2025?

There’s no shortage of KPIs. But here’s what the best teams track when planning:

Business Performance

• Revenue growth rate — are we expanding fast enough to justify our spend?
• Gross margin — is the core business profitable before headcount?
• Operating cash flow — can we self-fund growth?

Financial Efficiency

• Cash runway — how long can we operate without raising?
• Budget variance — how reliable are our forecasts?
• Days to close — are we moving fast enough to make decisions on time?

Each metric tells a different story. For example, operating cash flow reveals your company's ability to generate cash from core operations, while gross margin shows if you're pricing products correctly. The essential KPI list highlights how tracking metrics like Days to Close can help identify process inefficiencies.

Runway’s reporting tools let you build dashboards around these KPIs, set alerts when metrics drift off-target, and drill into the "why" behind any change.

5. How do I adjust my plan as things change?

Annual plans break the moment they meet reality. That’s why top teams shift from one plan per year to one plan that evolves continuously.

Here’s what that looks like:

1. Sync your ERP or HRIS to keep actuals fresh
2. Set monthly or quarterly planning checkpoints
3. Track variance between plan vs. actual
4. Adjust assumptions based on the latest data
5. Reforecast — and share updated scenarios with stakeholders

This rolling forecast approach keeps your planning relevant even as conditions change.

Runway handles this natively. You update drivers. The model adjusts. The team sees what’s changed. You move forward.

Next steps: Make 2025 planning work for you

Strategic planning doesn’t have to mean delayed decisions and brittle spreadsheets.

It can mean:

• Real-time collaboration
• Live forecasts that evolve
• Plans that tell a clear story — with the numbers to back it up

Customers like 818 Tequila have saved over 50 hours per week by moving their planning process into Runway.

Ready to see what that looks like?

Book a demo today.