One Data Set, No More Arguments. Connecting Planning, Close and Consolidation in Food & Beverage Manufacturing

One Data Set, No More Arguments. Connecting Planning, Close and Consolidation in Food & Beverage Manufacturing

Take the first two parts of this series together and a pattern falls out. FP&A can’t forecast faster than the data behind it, and the close can’t finish faster than the plant data feeding it. So a food or beverage manufacturer can fix planning and fix closing in isolation and still not fix the actual problem, which is that the same entity data is being collected, cleaned and argued over three separate times by three separate teams. 

Pacera’s own framing of this is refreshingly blunt: “Planning cycles start with numbers that may already be several weeks old by the time consolidation is complete.” Toby Davidson, CPO. That’s not a knock on any one team’s effort. It’s what happens when close, consolidation and planning run as three disconnected processes rather than three views of one data foundation. 

The market pressure to fix this is real and it’s board-level. Gartner’s research into 2026 CFO priorities found cost optimisation is the single most cited priority (56% of CFOs) and forecast accuracy is close behind (51%) while, separately, Gartner found that technology budgets are rising for 75% of CFOs even as headcount growth expectations fall from 6% to just 2%. The Hackett Group’s benchmarking of “digital world class” finance functions shows what’s actually achievable when the data foundation is unified: 35–57% shorter close cycles, 74% faster executive insight, and up to 42% fewer FTEs needed to run the function. That’s not a productivity nice-to-have. In a sector where RSM’s own 2026 outlook says productivity, not pricing, is now what drives value, it’s the new no. 1 goal. 

This is why Pacera has 3 key offerings under one suite. Aico automates the close and reconciliation work that starts at the plant. AARO consolidates every entity in real time, on one model, with the audit trail built in rather than reconstructed afterwards. Mercur plans and forecasts from that same live, consolidated data instead of a monthly export. A manufacturer can start with whichever piece hurts most today – start with what you need, scale as you grow. 

It also changes who gets to make decisions with confidence, not just finance. Gartner has found that only 15% of FP&A leaders have a sustainable model for supporting the business without burning their own team out, and separately that a third of leaders whose organisations rarely use data to decide say it’s because people simply trust their gut more. In manufacturing, that’s often rational:  

None of this erases the caveats worth carrying into any board conversation. 

What isn’t in question is the direction of travel the analysts describe, or the named client results — AJ Products, Tecan, AkzoNobel, Vincit and others — that back up what happens when close, consolidation and planning finally run on one data set. 

For a food or beverage manufacturer squeezed between fading pricing power and a compliance calendar that only gets longer, examples from Pacera’s client base set the benchmark – AJ Products, Tecan, AkzoNobel, Vincit all report increase productivity and forecast accuracy with Mercur by Pacera. That’s the practical prize: fewer versions of the truth, fewer weeks-old numbers driving this quarter’s decisions, and a finance team spending its time on what’s next rather than reassembling what already happened. 

See FP&A planning working from one data set. Request a Pacera demo for your finance team →