TrustRadius Insights for SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.
Pros
Reporting Feature: Many users have found the reporting feature helpful in generating easily distributable reports within their company.
Compatibility with Excel: Users appreciate the tool's compatibility with Excel, as it offers a familiar environment for data presentation and analysis.
Detailed Tracking and Access Management: Users have expressed admiration for the detailed tracking capabilities at a granular level, as well as the access management and traceability features that enhance data security and integrity within the tool.
Effective Forecasting and Budgeting Features: The tool's forecasting and budgeting functionalities are noted by users to facilitate financial planning, streamline expense organization, payment processing, all without requiring external training.
We have recently built 2 reports with SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) which allow us to show balance sheet & P&L in one currency that has evolved our reporting process and made it more efficient and accurate. Previously we used a manual excel file to consolidate all values and the exchange rate issue was very time reliant and caused multiple issues. Sage BPC has eliminated this issue as we have the elimination entry section that clears up. It has also allowed us to create consolidated reports for different areas of business (eg - 2 or 3 businesses at once) which were previously reported manually.
Pros
combine currencies into one easy to use report
allow the addition of graphs to reports and dashboards to show trends clearly
allows for multiple books to be added where you can add and consolidate a number of entities together at your choosing with no hassle.
stores previous consolidations so it is easy to track & fix any issues with progress
Cons
some reports seem to take a while to run and crash when too much information is being processed
Graphs don't allows certain things to be added like labels & %. If this could be replicated like excel graphs it would be ideal. The option to then add to dashboards would help presentation of accounts
reports are very limited and the scope to add in creative reporting isnt large. Would be nice to be able to add in manual calculations on reports and show KPI's specific to company
Likelihood to Recommend
SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) overall is a good package and has helped improve our reporting a lot whilst also making it more efficient due to the reliability of data input / output. There are limitations like graphs being so limited in functionality and reports failing when too much data being processed however i would recommend to others.
VU
Verified User
Professional in Finance and Accounting (201-500 employees)
We use it for forecasting and budgeting for our multibrand business
Pros
Easy to use UX
Easy to build attributes
Formulas to retrieve information from the data base
Excel very stable even with the SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) formulas embedded into the sheet
Easy to write reports
Cons
Better UX for non- finance team members to review or input data
Likelihood to Recommend
SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) is well suited for a large organisation where you require to gather information in specific models, you are able to easily Embed a SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) model at the back for ease of upload
VU
Verified User
Manager in Finance and Accounting (1001-5000 employees)
Using it for planning purposes only. Focus is on budgeting and capex (invest). We were looking into a couple of other products such as Allevo by Kern. The most important functionality is the bi-directional SAP link. We will adopt some other processes by beginning of April. some sort of driver based costing will be part of a project by end of this year.
Pros
Frontend / data input
Consolidation
Performance
SAP Connection
Cons
Reporting functions
No actual values to compare
Business logic
Likelihood to Recommend
If doing activity independent planning only, SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) is great. If the planning process is slit on multiple objects, there’s room for improvement
For Budget and Planning, consolidating various Business Units for Managment reporting.
Pros
Consolidation makes it easy for users
Ease of use for Finance/Accounting users
Access data in real time
Cons
Excel interface is slow.
SAP BPC nears the end of life, looks like it will not be supported soon.
Likelihood to Recommend
It is easy for Finance and Accounting users because they are familiar with Excel. However, the interface with Excel is slow, sometimes got disconnected. Users are frustrated with it.
VU
Verified User
Director in Finance and Accounting (1001-5000 employees)
We used SAP BPC for annual budgeting, quarterly forecasting, monthly Budvar analysis, and periodic external/internal reporting. We wanted to have an integrated suite of solutions that center around our ERP system, SAP. BPC was used globally throughout the organization.
Pros
Integration with SAP actual results.
Drilldown capabilities.
Works well with Excel presentation.
Cons
User interface not intuitive.
Frequent system downtime/issues.
No real-time update of entries.
Likelihood to Recommend
Well suited: integrated ERP system using one instance of SAP; uniform reporting processes. Less appropriate: non-SAP system; complex scenario analysis needs.
mainly use for change control and change management in product life cycle management and reporting purpose.
Pros
Detailed tracking at granular level
access management
traceability
reporting
Cons
user friendliness
UI improvement
Search capabilities
Reporting
Likelihood to Recommend
it is well suited when detail tracking of many product level changes to happen and less appropriate when you have to get data instantly through reporting and edit those data manually as searching is quite cumbersome.
VU
Verified User
Manager in Research & Development (10,001+ employees)
The goal of utilizing SAP BPC (business planning and consolidation) is to be able to better plan and consolidate business.
Pros
Business
Planning
Consolidation
Cons
Corporate
Forecasting
Divesting
Likelihood to Recommend
SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) is very well suited for business forecasting and integration. It is not very good for situational divesting or diversification of assets. It integrates well with accounting and financial reporting systems. The SAP B4 Hana system is a prime example of this. It is very good for accountants, finance, and management.
Most of the utilities of BPC are very good for the netweaver version.
Likelihood to Recommend
As discussed earlier, here are my thoughts about SAP BPC. We use SAP BPC at our company for the purposes of planning, budgeting, forecasting, and financial consolidation. We have integrated it with our BW system and it works perfectly fine. By using this, we certainly align our Financial and Operational plans and Reduce budget cycle time. SAP BPC has certainly provided more accurate information for less risk management planning and decision making.
SAP BPC was used in a previous company I was employed in to aid in the organization of business expenses. Also, it was used in order to compensate employees for personal expenses that were used during business hours, such as mileage related to business travel. It is easy to organize, process payments, and have an easy learning curve for all employees that required no external training.
Pros
Expense organization.
Payment processing.
Ease of use for all users.
No external training needed for employees to understand use of SAP BPC.
Cons
Better implementation of mobile app.
Improvement of UI look, minor gripe.
Integrated chat support for quick answers to issues.
Likelihood to Recommend
SAP BPC has a perfect use scenario for companies who have many different offices or need for organization of business expenses. Categorizing expenses is easy that any end-user is able to understand with no need for extensive training. Also, payment processing for the expenses is an easy and quick turnaround time. Companies or businesses with a small staff or minimal business expenses from multiple sources may not find value from SAP BPC.