Anaplan vs Workday Financial Management

Likelihood to Recommend

Well Suited

Any process that you expect to change frequently.
A process within a dynamic environment, such as high tech / the startup world, where you expect significant business process changes.
Any process that requires a significant number of collaborators.
Any process where you intend for users to update logic with Excel-like formulas.
Any process where using Google Docs has failed to accommodate your needs for data integrity.

Less Appropriate

Data visualization - Anaplan has capabilities here, but other tools are more focused on this.
Data storage - Anaplan is not a data warehouse and has limits on what you can store.

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Matthew Kuo

Senior Sales Planning Analyst

Tableau SoftwareComputer Software, 1001-5000 employees

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Workday is a very innovative platform that offers plenty of options and resources to its users in their daily lives. I have used Workday in three of the organizations I have worked in the past for. I am also a current user of Workday through my employer. Workday is best suitable for any retail or customer-facing environments. More and more companies are using Workday to even have strong candidates apply for a job. This helps them navigate their way through a platform that they will be using in the near future.

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Zahra Najib

Customer Advocate

CarvanaInternet, 1001-5000 employees

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Feature Rating Comparison

Anaplan

7.2

Workday Financial Management

—

Customizable dashboards

7.2

—

Anaplan

8.0

Workday Financial Management

—

Publish to PDF

8.3

—

Report Versioning

8.3

—

Report Delivery Scheduling

7.3

—

Anaplan

6.9

Workday Financial Management

—

Responsive Design for Web Access

6.9

—

Anaplan

8.4

Workday Financial Management

—

Long-term financial planning

7.8

—

Financial budgeting

8.7

—

Forecasting

8.8

—

Scenario modeling

8.3

—

Management reporting

8.3

—

Anaplan

7.1

Workday Financial Management

—

Financial data consolidation

8.6

—

Journal entries and reports

7.3

—

Multi-currency management

6.2

—

Intercompany Eliminations

6.0

—

Minority Ownership

6.0

—

Local and consolidated reporting

8.1

—

Detailed Audit Trails

7.6

—

Anaplan

8.0

Workday Financial Management

—

Financial Statement Reporting

9.2

—

Management Reporting

8.8

—

Excel-based Reporting

5.3

—

Automated board and financial reporting

8.6

—

Anaplan

6.9

Workday Financial Management

—

Personalized dashboards

6.6

—

Color-coded scorecards

7.1

—

KPIs

7.0

—

Cost and profitability analysis

7.0

—

Key Performance Indicator setting

6.9

—

Benchmarking with external data

7.1

—

Anaplan

8.3

Workday Financial Management

—

Flat file integration

8.8

—

Excel data integration

7.5

—

Direct links to 3rd-party data sources

8.7

—

Anaplan

—

Workday Financial Management

8.5

Pay calculation

—

8.5

Benefit plan administration

—

8.5

Direct deposit files

—

8.5

Salary revision and increment management

—

8.5

Reimbursement management

—

8.5

Anaplan

—

Workday Financial Management

8.0

API for custom integration

—

8.0

Plug-ins

—

8.0

Anaplan

—

Workday Financial Management

9.5

Single sign-on capability

—

9.5

Role-based user permissions

—

9.5

Anaplan

—

Workday Financial Management

8.7

Dashboards

—

8.5

Standard reports

—

9.0

Custom reports

—

8.5

Anaplan

—

Workday Financial Management

8.6

Accounts payable

—

9.0

Accounts receivable

—

9.0

Expense management

—

8.0

Global Financial Support

—

8.0

Primary and Secondary Ledgers

—

8.0

Intercompany Accounting

—

8.0

Localizations

—

8.0

Journals and Reconciliations

—

9.0

Configurable Accounting

—

9.0

Centralized Rules Framework

—

9.0

Standardized Processes

—

9.0

Anaplan

—

Workday Financial Management

10.0

Credit card processing

—

10.0

Pros

Simultaneous data editing by several departments.
Large data calculation.
Agile access anywhere if you have Internet access.

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Максим Шилиманов

Planning Excellence Senior Specialist

UnileverConsumer Goods, 10,001+ employees

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We specically wanted a cloud financial management system that we could use in China and communicate reports to the headquarters organization and roll-up reporting. It performs well.
It was reasonably priced since we are not a for-profit company and need the Workday flexibility for finance and accounting operations. Most of our requirements are met with this one system.
The system worked efficiently with the additional security we built on to keep confidential. Many reports are ready off-the-shelf or easy to develop, which is a strength.

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Verified User

Executive in Finance and Accounting

Higher Education Company, 10,001+ employees

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Cons

As models get larger, there is definitely some lag in the calculation. This can get annoying for end users when they are using dashboards.
Sometimes there is too much flexibility -- can lead to wanting to use Anaplan for things that it wasn't explicitly designed for.
Reporting is still limited in some ways, more color options for example would be nice.

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Jake Cosenza

Financial Systems Analyst

San Francisco 49ersSports, 201-500 employees

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We were surprised by the lack of user guides and supporting information for day-to-day users. Granted, we could find this, but our users like guides.
The system could improve with contact help and chat functions if you need the answers quickly. We figured this would all have been built in.
Quite surprised by the lack of treasury management functionality. SAP and Oracle have it, although their modules are not that comprehensive or user friendly.

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Verified User

Executive in Finance and Accounting

Higher Education Company, 10,001+ employees

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Likelihood to Renew

Anaplan 8.2

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

Manager, Financial Systems

Research NowMarket Research, 1001-5000 employees

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No score

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Usability

Anaplan 8.2

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

Director, Financial Planning & Analysis

Cherwell SoftwareComputer Software, 201-500 employees

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No score

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Reliability and Availability

Anaplan 10.0

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

Manager, Financial Systems

Research NowMarket Research, 1001-5000 employees

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Performance

Anaplan 9.0

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

Manager, Financial Systems

Research NowMarket Research, 1001-5000 employees

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Support

Anaplan 8.1

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

Manager, Financial Systems

Research NowMarket Research, 1001-5000 employees

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No score

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In-Person Training

Anaplan 3.0

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

Manager, Financial Systems

Research NowMarket Research, 1001-5000 employees

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Online Training

Anaplan 5.0

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

Manager, Financial Systems

Research NowMarket Research, 1001-5000 employees

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No score

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Implementation

Anaplan 6.7

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

Manager, Financial Systems

Research NowMarket Research, 1001-5000 employees

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Alternatives Considered

It made sense to use Anaplan as it had already been built up by our sales and supply chain teams.

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Sharon Kam

Corporate Finance

Nest LabsConsumer Electronics, 201-500 employees

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It is a simple and intuitive solution that can be customized for your specific needs.
It unifies HR and finance, giving you predictive analytics, real-time insights, and global visibility.
It offers a single version of the tool to meet the requirements of diverse companies.
It integrates seamlessly with a large number of business apps and systems.

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Zahra Najib

Customer Advocate

CarvanaInternet, 1001-5000 employees

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Scalability

Anaplan 7.0

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

Manager, Financial Systems

Research NowMarket Research, 1001-5000 employees

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Return on Investment

I'm sure the impact is positive. We have streamlined many processes and created capacity for our finance team.
It's great to have "one source of truth" and know that everyone is looking at the same metrics.

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Kelley Haghighi

Sr. Finance Director

DaVita Kidney CareHospital & Health Care, 10,001+ employees

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As a new starup affiliate five years ago, we did not have a huge budget. The ROI was met relatively quickly, no surprises here.
With minimal consulting assistance, this made the implementation cost reasonable, if any software implementation could be considered reasonable.
It was a risk to implement Workday Financial Management in one country but we did leverage it with HCM in the states.

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Verified User

Executive in Finance and Accounting

Higher Education Company, 10,001+ employees

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