What users are saying about

Anaplan vs BlackLine

Anaplan

Top Rated
207 Ratings

BlackLine

15 Ratings

Anaplan

Top Rated
207 Ratings
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Score 8.4 out of 101

Based on 207 reviews and ratings

BlackLine

15 Ratings
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Score 8.2 out of 101

Based on 15 reviews and ratings

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Likelihood to Recommend

Anaplan

Sales performance management, various finance scenarios - Anaplan is good for automating calculations. It is less appropriate for very complex business cases.

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Szilvia Havasreti
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BlackLine

BlackLine is well suited for Finance teams who are looking to better understand their close process and specifically pin-point areas of weakness. This in turn leads to more viability and efficiency for this critical business process. The tool adapts well to your business as it continues to evolve

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Verified User
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Feature Rating Comparison

Budgeting, Planning, and Forecasting

Anaplan
7.5
BlackLine
—
Long-term financial planning
Anaplan
7.4
BlackLine
—
Financial budgeting
Anaplan
8.1
BlackLine
—
Forecasting
Anaplan
7.7
BlackLine
—
Scenario modeling
Anaplan
6.5
BlackLine
—
Management reporting
Anaplan
7.7
BlackLine
—

Consolidation and Close

Anaplan
6.5
BlackLine
—
Financial data consolidation
Anaplan
7.7
BlackLine
—
Journal entries and reports
Anaplan
6.5
BlackLine
—
Multi-currency management
Anaplan
6.2
BlackLine
—
Intercompany Eliminations
Anaplan
5.9
BlackLine
—
Minority Ownership
Anaplan
6.0
BlackLine
—
Local and consolidated reporting
Anaplan
7.2
BlackLine
—
Detailed Audit Trails
Anaplan
6.0
BlackLine
—

FInancial Reporting and Compliance

Anaplan
7.6
BlackLine
—
Financial Statement Reporting
Anaplan
7.0
BlackLine
—
Management Reporting
Anaplan
8.3
BlackLine
—
Excel-based Reporting
Anaplan
6.9
BlackLine
—
Automated board and financial reporting
Anaplan
8.3
BlackLine
—

Analytics

Anaplan
6.7
BlackLine
—
Personalized dashboards
Anaplan
5.4
BlackLine
—
Color-coded scorecards
Anaplan
6.0
BlackLine
—
KPIs
Anaplan
7.0
BlackLine
—
Cost and profitability analysis
Anaplan
7.0
BlackLine
—
Key Performance Indicator setting
Anaplan
7.5
BlackLine
—
Benchmarking with external data
Anaplan
7.1
BlackLine
—

Integration

Anaplan
8.3
BlackLine
—
Flat file integration
Anaplan
8.4
BlackLine
—
Excel data integration
Anaplan
8.3
BlackLine
—
Direct links to 3rd-party data sources
Anaplan
8.2
BlackLine
—

Pros

  • Real - time - the cloud based technology allows all changes & its impact is visible in real time.

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Szilvia Havasreti
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  • Easy to get set up and start leveraging quickly.
  • Market leader, so many of your Accounting professionals should already be familiar with it.
  • Product enables CAOs to have more comfort that close is on track and everything it getting done on schedule.
  • Pricing is fair, scalable, and reasonable.
  • Product team listens to feedback.
  • The tool integrates well with other associated systems.

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Verified User
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Cons

  • I believe user set up within Anaplan is one of the areas that could be improved greatly.
  • Workflow is another area that I believe could be improved. Currently, I do not believe, there is a way to create an action against workflow. This would be a great benefit rather than moving the item to complete or in progress if you could write an action for it.

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Matthew Cantwell
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  • Support can be weak at times
  • Cloud-based so updates are pushed through to users

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Verified User
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Likelihood to Renew

Anaplan8.2
Based on 3 answers
I don't think we could function without the collaboration capabilities built into Anaplan that replaced disparate Excel files in the workforce planning model

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Joe Bradbury
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No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic

Usability

Anaplan8.2
Based on 2 answers
There is a dependency in this rating - in that I find Anaplan extremely easy to use, but I've spent the necessary time developing a strong understanding of the platform. Once you understand how to use it, the platform is flexible, easy to use, and fun to use.

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Chris Friederich
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No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic

Reliability and Availability

Anaplan10.0
Based on 1 answer
In nearly 3 years, I have only had 1 issue of being unable to access my model for an unplanned maintenance. Even planned maintenance windows are handled during low traffic hours on the weekend.

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Joe Bradbury
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No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic

Performance

Anaplan9.0
Based on 1 answer
Everything is calculated in memory in the cloud. It's nearly instantaneous updates when you make changes. The only time things get a little slow is when you have a massive model with very intricate calculations...but "slow" for Anaplan is not what I would call "slow" for something like Hyperion. We used to have Hyperion calcs that ran for 60 mins before you could use data. The equivalent would be 60 seconds in Anaplan.

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Joe Bradbury
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No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic

Support

Anaplan8.1
Based on 2 answers
I feel like the support team is a little lacking in product knowledge. Several times I have contacted them to get help, and ended up finding a solution to my own problem before the team could get back to me with anything useful. I have also submitted a few bugs, and never got updates to when they were fixed in later releases.

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Joe Bradbury
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BlackLine5.0
Based on 1 answer
They're responsive, kind and patient, but communication skills and basic business acumen lack.

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Joshua Henke
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In-Person Training

Anaplan3.0
Based on 1 answer
The in-person training is simply not worth the cost. After a few weeks of playing in Anaplan, I went to the basic training and knew more than the person teaching it. a year down the road, I was the first person to complete the advance training, and again could have been teaching the class better than the person running the session. Spend some time on your own trying out different things and you will get all the understanding you need to be successful.

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Joe Bradbury
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No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic

Online Training

Anaplan5.0
Based on 1 answer
I'm giving this a 5 simply for the anapedia outline of calculations. The online videos and trainings leave a lot to be desired, but having anapedia around to help you understand calculations has been helpful. The drawback to anapedia is the depth they go into for calculations, it is lackluster at times. Because of that, I have been working through a much more in-depth look at each calculation on my website for users to reference: http://www.anaplanguru.com/formulas/

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Joe Bradbury
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No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic

Implementation

Anaplan6.7
Based on 12 answers
Implementation using Anaplan's internal customer success team left much to be desired. We've found much better success with outside consultants

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Christopher Pope
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No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic

Alternatives Considered

Anaplan requires less IT support and its calculation engine is far more powerful. Anaplan is also less expensive when total cost of ownership is considered. We also liked that you're able to use Anaplan for a variety of business planning functions rather than having a bespoke tool for budgets or commissions or demand planning etc.

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Christopher Pope
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Blackline is a more automated solution than Oracle.

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Verified User
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Scalability

Anaplan7.0
Based on 1 answer
It's going to handle most of what you can throw at it. The problem lies in the sparsity of some datasets. When you have over 5ish dimensions of sparse data, the size of the model gets bloated for not much value. In several cases, I have had to adapt my model to account for sparsity in a way that minimized use of space, but also made interacting with the data more cumbersome.

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Joe Bradbury
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No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic

Return on Investment

  • Workforce Planning efficiency - so much easier than excel to maintain sensitive information planning
  • Long range plan lead time - the old excel model took weeks to update. The Anaplan model takes hours

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Joe Bradbury
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  • Reduced time to reconcile accounts
  • Streamline reconciliations process

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Verified User
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Pricing Details

Anaplan

General
Free Trial
—
Free/Freemium Version
—
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
Entry-level set up fee?
Optional
Additional Pricing Details
Request a personal demo: https://www.anaplan.com/request-demo/ Free trial for existing customers for any app in the App Hub: https://apphub.anaplan.com/

BlackLine

General
Free Trial
—
Free/Freemium Version
—
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—
Entry-level set up fee?
No
Additional Pricing Details
—