We use Workday Adaptive Planning mostly for our monthly and annual P/L planning. Recently, we started using model sheets for Capex cash spend tracking. Workday has helped with version control which is crucial with over 50+ users.
Pros
Version Control
Import of transactions and importing data is straight forward and fast. Split accounts also allow user to improve accuracy.
Admin has control over design and layout of sheets instead of IT.
Cons
Text field from spilt accounts does not migrate into office connect. For example: Capex account: Capacity, free text field: 4 fork lifts, Timespan: April, Total: $160k. Officeconnect can only show Account, Timespan and Total. IE Capacity, April, $160k.
Scenario can only merge to base version. Cannot merge into different version.
Likelihood to Recommend
Scalability, multiple levels can allow multiple users to access sheets. Security is hard to manage. For example, if we want some users to have access to certain sheets only, not able to set this up.
VU
Verified User
Director in Finance and Accounting (Construction company, 5001-10,000 employees)
It is being used across our entire organization. We are using it both for forecasting purposes and actuals reporting purposes. We were previously using an in-house built financial system and the implementation of Adaptive has saved us time both in our monthly reporting process as well as our planning/quarterly forecasting process.
Pros
It allows us to provide up to date information to senior management with the click of a few buttons.
It saves us time in our month-end close process as well as our budgeting/forecasting process.
Its dashboarding allows us to create visuals and monthly KPI's to report to senior management.
Likelihood to Recommend
Adaptive Insights allows us to consolidate our reporting in a simple and efficient manner. The system is very user-friendly and a person with just an accounting background and no previous IT background can maintain the system with ease. Adaptive appeals to companies of all sizes as there are many tools each company can take advantage of.
Cons
We would like to see the functionality of dates being added to web reports.
The month to month maintenance is sometimes cumbersome. This is more of a comment due to the fact that we are a construction company and our structure (jobs) changes on a monthly basis.
The software is being used across the whole organization to create annual budgets, year-end projections, and monthly income statements. The security allows the company to give different users different access rights.
Pros
The security is simple to use. We can restrict users to only see certain departments or sheets. We can also limit who sees salary information.
Reports are easy to create and can be exported in a clean format to Excel or PDF.
The systems allow you to enter data directly into the software or you can upload data from an external source.
Likelihood to Recommend
Adaptive is good for creating a budget or rolling forecast. It also has strong reporting capabilities.
Cons
The programming of new sheets and formulas can be created with limited programming knowledge but you need to bounce around to a few different windows to get some formulas to work. I think it's easier to create formulas in Excel, but once the formulas are created they work well.
VU
Verified User
Administrator in Finance and Accounting (Civil Engineering company, 201-500 employees)
DCC uses Adaptive Insights for planning and budget across 40 business units. Those 40 business units are geographically dispersed across Canada. Adaptive Insights has allowed us to transform our planning and budgeting from an Excel model that required a lot of maintenance to an easy to use format user have adoption easily. It has also shortened the time it takes to do monthly financial reporting. The additional benefit is the dashboard capability that we didn't have before.
Pros
Easy to use and implement.
The organizational hierarchy makes it easy to roll up business units into regions and the company as a whole.
It has made the reporting function easier at month end.
Likelihood to Recommend
Adaptive Insights is well suited to the planning and budgeting of employee and general and administrative expenses. You can also create powerful models for revenue with multiple dimensions for detailed planning.
The version control is easy to use and allows for the creation of multiple what-if if scenarios.
The reporting allows you to combine the multiple versions into a single report to compare versions.
Cons
The processes set up need to be able to assign multiple users to each task. The way it works, the tasks are assigned to each individual user.
The workflow for lower levels in the hierarchy could be enhanced to make it easier to find for users.
For managing reports, it would be nice to be able to drag and drop them between folders.
