#1 most frequent
United States of America
83.0%449 installations of 541
What is Planful?
Planful is a cloud-based enterprise performance management (EPM) suite. It includes financial applications for modeling, planning, consolidation, reporting and analytics.
Categories & Use Cases
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Screenshot of the Planful Planform Dashboard
Top Performing Features
Responsive Design for Web Access
Web design aimed at producing easy-to-read sites across a range of different devices.
Category average: 7.5
Multi-User Support (named login)
Named model access means that users have access based on name and password.
Category average: 9
Single Sign-On (SSO)
Allows users to use one set of login credentials to access multiple applications
Category average: 8.6
Areas for Improvement
Journal entries and reports
Ability to enter journal entry adjustments and produce reports showing all journal entries for a specific period.
Category average: 7.5
Multi-currency management
Ability to handle foreign currency conversions during consolidation.
Category average: 7.4
Benchmarking with external data
CPI, daily exchange rates, industry KPIs. with scheduled data refreshes.
Category average: 7.3
Who Buys & Uses Planful
#2 most frequent
Canada
4.6%25 installations of 541
#3 most frequent
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
3.9%21 installations of 541
Pros
- Robust financial reporting capabilities with dynamic and customizable reports
- Structured budgeting and forecasting features for annual and rolling plans
- Significant efficiency gains through automation and reduced manual effort
Cons
- User interface and overall user experience can be unintuitive, especially for budgeting and input pages
- Limited flexibility in dashboarding and handling of percentage values in table graphs
- Reporting limitations, including report sizes, tab maximums, and dynamic reporting workarounds
Planful - strong for financial reporting and data aggregation
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
I use Planful in a daily capacity to provide financial analysis to our field team in order for them to operate more efficiently. It allows me to aggregate both financial data along with key performance metrics so that I can answer questions for operators to drive efficiency and answer questions about the health of the business. It also lets me create dedicated reports so that I can quickly report on our financials to our key stakeholders both on a monthly basis and when they have questions about the business. Recently I have been using the planning templates in an effort to create in depth models to attempt to forecast and budget future expense based on historicals and key data inputs.
Pros
- It aggregates data from different sources well, allowing me to report on a wide variety of metrics that interrelate.
- I can build detailed reports so that my monthly and weekly reporting is done more efficiently
- I like the tools that I am using to create dedicated models for forecasting and budgeting purposes
Cons
- I think there is an opportunity to allow for more customization of reports so that they can be finalized in Planful
- Data aggregation of very large data sets can be slow at times
- Dashboards need more features in order to have a better use case
Return on Investment
- I am able to report faster on financials and KPIs
- I am able to create reports that show the impact KPIs have on the financials due to the data aggregation abilities
- The attributes and drill down capabilities allow me to answer questions related to financial performance in a detailed and efficient manner
Other Software Used
Dayforce, Microsoft Power BI
Review of Planful
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We are a Veterinary hospital consolidator. We have many use cases for Planful due to the ways we break down our business. Planful allows us to analyze data from a Top of the House perspective while still providing functionality to drill-down to the lowest level. Due to this, it is a great tool for us to analyze data and identify issues at a particular hospital. We also enjoy the reporting functionalities that are offered. We have many reports that we generate on a monthly basis that are distributed to regions and hospitals. We can associate directors with a particular region and then automate monthly reports to distribute their respective region's report.
Pros
- Reporting
- Analyzing Data
- Hierarchies
- Report Automation
Cons
- Wish there was more ease of use with creating reports. Sometimes I think to myself it would just be easier to export to Excel and make modifications there.
- There are some formatting nuances that can be really frustrating.
- I wish the dashboards had a bit more functionality.
- There are some limitations that can be really frustrating. For example, you are unable to copy more than one report or an entire folder.
Return on Investment
- Automates many reports that would take hundreds of hours each month if we had to do outside of Planful.
- The drill-down capabilities allow us to identify issues and quickly correct them.
- Templates help us to budget for many locations at once. This saves countless hours.
Alternatives Considered
Banana Accounting
Other Software Used
Sage Intacct
Usability
A trusted product
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use Planful for budgeting and forecasting, financial reporting and workforce planning. Since we follow statutory planning and not GAAP, the ease to create and modify financials statements is critical to our organization. Before Planful our budgeting and forecasting was done in Excel which was cumbersome as well as time consuming. We find the product fits our business needs.
Pros
- Ease of use
- The solution hub is a great resource to research capabilities and best practices for the software.
- Planful take security seriously.
- NetSuite connector
Cons
- Creating reports at time is quite complex
- Limitations in the dashboard tool
- Lack of a mobile application
Return on Investment
- Significant time saved on financial statement preparation
- Ability to create scenarios for forecasting faster
- Workforce planning has been great in position level budgeting
Other Software Used
NetSuite ERP, Paychex Flex
Planful
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use Planful to plan our budgets and rolling forecast and to lead our monthly variance reporting. By integrating our GL data and managing planning scenarios we greatly reduced manual work in spreadsheets. We use workforce planning for headcount planning and reporting and bring in actual employees level payroll data to aid in variance analysis. We have created statical cash flow account they allows us to plan and report on detailed cash flow planning.
Pros
- Intuitive reporting
- Excel spotlight
- Data integration
Cons
- Simplify dynamic planning user experience
- Online help searches
- Spotlight formulas
Return on Investment
- Planful had freed up 1 FTE that was just manually managing data.
Alternatives Considered
SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) and SAP Business Warehouse
Other Software Used
Sage Intacct Planning
Planful's no slouch
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
HomeServices uses Planful primarily as a consolidation and reporting tool. We have several different ledgers across our organization and Planful makes consolidation a breeze as the translation tables are easy to setup. In addition, we are also are able to use assign attributes within the hierarchy to view results in a non-traditional format, which involves allocating results between business segments. We also use Planful as a forecasting tool, the Structured Planning module has made this process very simple as the templates are very easy to setup and complete. The templates can be a little time-consuming to navigate as they are web-based, that's my only complaint. We also use the Structured Planning module to assist with our 10-year plan, which the templates are very easy to complete. Before Planful, we were using Oracle Hyperion, which was at the end of life, the Oracle replacement was not cost-effective for us so we chose Planful from a handful of vendors that were brought in, OneStream, Blackline and Oracle Financial Close and Consolidation.
Pros
- Planful is integral in our month-end close process as we are able to use the software to consolidate our financials
- Financial reporting is easy to use and once there is an understanding of column and row sets, building custom reports is a breeze
- Forecasting via the Structured Planning module is easy to setup and once completed, the templates can be updated very easily
Cons
- Password reset does not work, we now have single sign on setup though so this is no longer an issue. Simple fix is to use single sign on and that eliminates this issue.
- Password reset does not work, we now have single sign on setup though so this is no longer an issue
Return on Investment
- Before Planful, we were using excel for our forecasting and 10 year plans, so implementing the Structured Planning module was a key benefit for us. It didn't take us long to realize that this was a huge benefit and far more accurate than our excel models.
- The ease of reporting in Planful was such an upgrade from our previous tool, where you needed to be an expert to learn how to build reports. Planful is intuitive in the report building process and very easy to understand, customizing reports is a breeze.
Alternatives Considered
Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management
Other Software Used
Sage Fixed Assets, Visual Lease, AuditBoard, DocuSign, SAP Concur, PeopleDoc / UKG HR Service Delivery (discontinued)
