What users are saying about

Anaplan vs BlackLine

Anaplan

Top Rated
205 Ratings

BlackLine

15 Ratings

Anaplan

Top Rated
205 Ratings
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Score 8.3 out of 101

Based on 205 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

I ranked it high at a 7/10 primarily because there's not much competition. It generally gets the job done, but they could really up their game with healthy competition. There are a few other modules, like Consolidations and Variance Analysis, we do not use and could benefit us.For our use, it's overkill as a glorified checklist. This is our primary use and, while important, is pretty expensive, given how many user licenses we need.We are beginning to enable multiple subsidiaries and multiple currency. It's capabilities here and the knowledge fo the Product Manager are encouraging. Seems straightforward, conceptually.

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Joshua Henke
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Feature Rating Comparison

Budgeting, Planning, and Forecasting

Anaplan
7.4
BlackLine
—
Long-term financial planning
Anaplan
7.4
BlackLine
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Financial budgeting
Anaplan
8.1
BlackLine
—
Forecasting
Anaplan
7.7
BlackLine
—
Scenario modeling
Anaplan
6.5
BlackLine
—
Management reporting
Anaplan
7.6
BlackLine
—

Consolidation and Close

Anaplan
6.5
BlackLine
—
Financial data consolidation
Anaplan
7.7
BlackLine
—
Journal entries and reports
Anaplan
6.6
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
7.1
BlackLine
—
Detailed Audit Trails
Anaplan
6.1
BlackLine
—

FInancial Reporting and Compliance

Anaplan
7.5
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
8.0
BlackLine
—

Analytics

Anaplan
6.7
BlackLine
—
Personalized dashboards
Anaplan
5.3
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
7.4
BlackLine
—
Benchmarking with external data
Anaplan
7.2
BlackLine
—

Integration

Anaplan
8.3
BlackLine
—
Flat file integration
Anaplan
8.3
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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  • Task Management is straightforward. Ownership, review, and approval are straightforward and pretty easy to configure and follow.
  • Account Reconciliation works similarly. Supporting documents can be attached to a given rec to ease the audit. If balances change after approved, the approval is peeled back.
  • Integration with our financial system works seamlessly. Configured to run every 4 hours each day, it's helpful to know even when balances change, BlackLine is up-to-date.

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Joshua Henke
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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

Anaplan8.0
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

Anaplan6.8
Based on 12 answers
I won't rate this low due to the 3rd party consultant, because overall the implementation with Anaplan went great. We had working models in our first month of having Anaplan, and have been able to branch out into multiple facets of the business in the 3 years since our first implementation.

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

Alternatives Considered

Anaplan was selected by management without technical expertise. Now there is no way back.

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Максим Шилиманов
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To my knowledge, BlackLine is the de facto leader in the space hence we went with them at my last two companies. We are pleased with our selection and would implement them again at a future company.

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Verified User
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Lines of Business and Business Impact

While we have not done a formal ROI calculation on our Anaplan implementation it has benefited our business in a number of ways:1. Error avoidance - Once a process is built there is no worrying about which version of the spreadsheet am I looking at!2. Data validation - I personally saved >10 hours per week that I used to spend manipulating and validating data coming and going to and from different sources.3. Analysis - By vastly improving our tool and processes we now can build and perform analyses that we never even considered before Anaplan.4. Repeatable - No longer is our process dependent on tribal knowledge or a specific individual to maintain or repair.

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Brent Orr
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No answers on this topic

Selection Process

Adaptive and Host Analytics

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More flexible and able to handle more data.

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Tommy Bettles
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No answers on this topic

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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  • Enabled Accounting team to stay coordinated during critical month end close period.
  • Increased coordination enabled the team to shorten close cycle, which enables financial reporting to start earlier — a huge win.
  • Solution helps our CAO rest easy knowing close will go smoothly.
  • Allows teams to easily track where there are breakdowns in the close 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
—