Businesses continue to turn to the Internet in search of greater efficiency and lower costs. The lure of enhanced transaction execution and reduced costs is a powerful combination. Geographically-dispersed businesses may find that this is an especially attractive scenario for developing their budgets.

In considering an online budget process, decision makers should evaluate the risks involved thoroughly. While the potential dangers of electronic commerce transactions are well-documented, similar dangers exist for companies who may unwittingly expose their critical business processes via the Internet. What could be more valuable to a company than its detailed operational and strategic plans for the future?

Companies are aggressively pursuing online distribution channels for their products while investing heavily in online security. It is difficult to ensure the security of corporate data while providing employees with access to both the company's intranet and the Internet. Decision makers should review their internal controls, policies and procedures carefully when they explore the feasibility of developing an online budget information system.

If remote access is a primary consideration, then reliability should also be a major factor in making a decision. Network traffic during the critical, final hours of developing the budget can be a serious problem if the company does not have an alternative method available for completing the project. Decision makers should question the daily network traffic's effect on response time. Companies should also consider whether or not an in-house or external solution would provide them with redundant capabilities and the necessary technical expertise in the event of server difficulties.

It is important to note that while development tools, HTML, XML, and other standards are improving, not all applications are well-suited for the Internet. Performance times for processing Internet-based transactions may be very unacceptable when compared to similar client/server or desktop applications. If processing performance decreases, then the organization may actually increase its costs of developing a budget. This performance/cost factor should be measured and weighed against end users' needs for remote access.

Client/server systems offer organizations an alternative for developing an online budget information system. If the organization does not want to expose the system to remote access, it can limit access to its internal network users in order to ensure security. Systems that operate in the Microsoft 2000 and 2003 environment can utilize those servers' remote access server capabilities when remote users must be able to access the system.

While a lot of end users would like to see the budget process disappear completely, administrators do not want to inadvertently (or otherwise) lose the information that end users labored so long to develop. It is important that decision makers review all of the relevant risks, security issues, performance issues, and continuity plans before deciding upon a technology that's right for their organization.