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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Microsoft Access

    Score7.5 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft Access is a database management system from Microsoft that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software-development tools.

    $139.99

    per PC

    Planful

    Score8.4 out of 10
    Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
    Planful is a cloud-based enterprise performance management (EPM) suite. It includes financial applications for modeling, planning, consolidation, reporting and analytics.N/A
    Pricing
    Microsoft AccessPlanful
    Editions & Modules
    Microsoft Access
    $139.99
    per PC
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Microsoft AccessPlanful
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeRequired
    Additional Details—Pricing is highly dependent on the complexity and scope of the implementation.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Microsoft AccessPlanful
    Considered Both Products
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Planful
    Chose Planful
    Planful is much more dynamic and faster to update. Less error prone than these other platforms.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    97%
    Would buy again
    29 Answers
    97%
    Would buy again
    101 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    29 Answers
    99%
    Delivers good value for the price
    90 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    93%
    Happy with the feature set
    28 Answers
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    102 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    86%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    19 Answers
    90%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    60 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    91%
    Implementation went as expected
    21 Answers
    84%
    Implementation went as expected
    67 Answers
    Features
    Microsoft AccessPlanful
    Relational Databases
    Comparison of Relational Databases features of Microsoft Access and Planful
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    7.7
    3 Ratings
    5% below category average
    Planful
    -
    Ratings
    ACID compliance7.02 Ratings00 Ratings
    Database monitoring8.02 Ratings00 Ratings
    Database locking8.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    Encryption7.02 Ratings00 Ratings
    Disaster recovery7.73 Ratings00 Ratings
    Flexible deployment8.02 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multiple datatypes8.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    BI Standard Reporting
    Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Microsoft Access and Planful
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Planful
    6.1
    64 Ratings
    21% below category average
    Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings6.933 Ratings
    Customizable dashboards00 Ratings5.057 Ratings
    Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings6.555 Ratings
    Ad-hoc Reporting
    Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Microsoft Access and Planful
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Planful
    7.5
    104 Ratings
    3% below category average
    Drill-down analysis00 Ratings8.4103 Ratings
    Formatting capabilities00 Ratings7.0104 Ratings
    Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings7.197 Ratings
    Report Output and Scheduling
    Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Microsoft Access and Planful
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Planful
    7.4
    86 Ratings
    7% below category average
    Publish to Web00 Ratings8.433 Ratings
    Publish to PDF00 Ratings6.477 Ratings
    Report Versioning00 Ratings6.555 Ratings
    Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings8.566 Ratings
    Data Discovery and Visualization
    Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Microsoft Access and Planful
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Planful
    6.1
    51 Ratings
    19% below category average
    Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings5.040 Ratings
    Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings6.42 Ratings
    Predictive Analytics00 Ratings6.044 Ratings
    Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings7.33 Ratings
    Access Control and Security
    Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Microsoft Access and Planful
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Planful
    8.9
    103 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings8.496 Ratings
    Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings8.894 Ratings
    Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings8.595 Ratings
    Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings8.855 Ratings
    Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings9.778 Ratings
    Mobile Capabilities
    Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Microsoft Access and Planful
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Planful
    2.3
    42 Ratings
    104% below category average
    Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings2.540 Ratings
    Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings2.230 Ratings
    Budgeting, Planning, and Forecasting
    Comparison of Budgeting, Planning, and Forecasting features of Microsoft Access and Planful
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Planful
    8.7
    156 Ratings
    8% above category average
    Long-term financial planning00 Ratings8.7139 Ratings
    Financial budgeting00 Ratings9.0155 Ratings
    Forecasting00 Ratings9.0146 Ratings
    Scenario modeling00 Ratings7.8131 Ratings
    Management reporting00 Ratings9.0149 Ratings
    Consolidation and Close
    Comparison of Consolidation and Close features of Microsoft Access and Planful
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Planful
    8.0
    118 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Financial data consolidation00 Ratings9.3107 Ratings
    Journal entries and reports00 Ratings7.886 Ratings
    Multi-currency management00 Ratings7.470 Ratings
    Intercompany Eliminations00 Ratings7.673 Ratings
    Minority Ownership00 Ratings6.939 Ratings
    Local and consolidated reporting00 Ratings7.789 Ratings
    Detailed Audit Trails00 Ratings9.187 Ratings
    Financial Reporting and Compliance
    Comparison of Financial Reporting and Compliance features of Microsoft Access and Planful
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Planful
    7.6
    152 Ratings
    7% below category average
    Financial Statement Reporting00 Ratings8.8133 Ratings
    Management Reporting00 Ratings8.8143 Ratings
    Excel-based Reporting00 Ratings7.0141 Ratings
    Automated board and financial reporting00 Ratings6.5114 Ratings
    XBRL support for regulatory filing00 Ratings7.13 Ratings
    Analytics and Reporting
    Comparison of Analytics and Reporting features of Microsoft Access and Planful
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Planful
    5.9
    104 Ratings
    24% below category average
    Personalized dashboards00 Ratings5.191 Ratings
    Color-coded scorecards00 Ratings2.555 Ratings
    KPIs00 Ratings7.476 Ratings
    Cost and profitability analysis00 Ratings6.975 Ratings
    Key Performance Indicator setting00 Ratings6.963 Ratings
    Benchmarking with external data00 Ratings6.410 Ratings
    Integration
    Comparison of Integration features of Microsoft Access and Planful
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Planful
    8.9
    140 Ratings
    10% above category average
    Flat file integration00 Ratings9.5105 Ratings
    Excel data integration00 Ratings7.8130 Ratings
    Direct links to 3rd-party data sources00 Ratings9.596 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Microsoft AccessPlanful
    Small Businesses
    Amazon RDS
    Score8.1 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    SingleStore
    Score8.2 out of 10
    IBM Planning Analytics
    Score8.5 out of 10
    Enterprises
    SAP IQ
    Score5.4 out of 10
    Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management
    Score7.2 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Microsoft AccessPlanful
    Likelihood to Recommend
    7.4
    (102 ratings)
    8.8
    (164 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (15 ratings)
    8.7
    (23 ratings)
    Usability
    7.6
    (8 ratings)
    8.2
    (21 ratings)
    Availability
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.2
    (4 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (3 ratings)
    Support Rating
    6.4
    (5 ratings)
    9.0
    (22 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (3 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (3 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    7.3
    (9 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (2 ratings)
    CPA Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    5.3
    (4 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.2
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.4
    (4 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Microsoft AccessPlanful
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Microsoft
    As a Material Purchasing/Planning/inventory tracking application, Microsoft Access serves its purpose well. It's presentation is clean, data entry is simple and the ability to customize search fields is welcome. It does, however, come with some caveats; namely, when setting search filters and the need arises to back up a step or two, with Microsoft Access you have to reset, or "clear all", adding extra steps/time to a query.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Planful
    Planful is initially easy to setup and if a company is already using a mid layer to transform and standardise GL data, management reports can be set up in days, not weeks or months. Budgeting template setup does get some getting used to but the training provided by Planful is sufficient to get going and learn along the way. Building custom reports is straightforward and the interface is user-friendly, therefore the accounting team can get going without the need for technical specialists getting involved. Budget and forecasting is flexible and drivers of revenue and cost can be created in Planful and customised by Unit or Geography.
    Read full review
    Pros
    Microsoft
    • Very easy to create entity-relationship diagrams for various tables and designing mock layouts.
    • Really easy to navigate as it hold[s] the classic Microsoft UI. Another good thing is that it comes with the complete MS Office Suite.
    • It is really fast when joining multiple tables no matter what type of join.
    • Works on pretty much same SQL scripts so no need to learn a new language!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Planful
    • It aggregates data from different sources well, allowing me to report on a wide variety of metrics that interrelate.
    • I can build detailed reports so that my monthly and weekly reporting is done more efficiently
    • I like the tools that I am using to create dedicated models for forecasting and budgeting purposes
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Microsoft
    • Microsoft Access has not really changed at all for several years. It might be nice to see some upgrades and changes.
    • The help info is often not helpful. Need more tutorials for Microsoft Access to show how to do specific things.
    • Be careful naming objects such as tables, forms, etc. Names that are too long can get cut off in dialog boxes to choose a table, form, report, etc. So, I wish they would have resizable dialog boxes to allow you to see objects with long names.
    • I wish it could show me objects that are not in use in the database for current queries, tables, reports, forms, and macros. That way unused objects can be deleted without worrying about losing a report or query because you deleted the underlying object.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Planful
    • Dashboarding could be more flexible and easier to use.
    • Dynamic Reporting has room for flexibility with nesting, dimension names showing up instead of “All,” and overall flexibility.
    • Make Analyze view in Spotlight more intuitive.
    • A high-level onboarding guide to understanding the different components of Planful, data flows, and tips & tricks.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Microsoft
    I and the rest of my team will renew our Microsoft Access in the future because we use and maintain many different applications and databases created using Microsoft Access so we will need to maintain them in the future. Additionally, it is a standard at our place of work so it is at $0 cost to us to use. Another reason for renewing Microsoft Access is that we just don' t have the resources needed to extend into a network of users so we need to remain a single-desktop application at this time.
    Read full review
    Planful
    Our new Comptroller understands the value of Planful, and we plan to utilize it further in the organization to enhance external reporting. Strangely enough, Planful had not previously been embraced by the former CFO, who argued that we were running two sets of books (of course, we were not). Fortunately, the before mentioned reconciliation of EBITDA to Net Income demonstrated that to the banks.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Microsoft
    Microsoft Access is easy to use. It is compatible with spreadsheets. It is a very good data management tool. There is scope to save a large amount of data in one place. For using this database, one does not need much training, can be shared among multiple users. This database has to sort and filtering features which seem to be very useful.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Planful
    The tool is extremely adaptable, and it enables very quick querying to give us opportunity to gain live insights into the business. Given its adaptability, we are also able to create scenario analyses very quickly in rapidly changing environments. The formatting also enables us to provide this information in a very consumable manner.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Microsoft
    I don't think the program has ever failed me. It is one of those programs where there is always a solution if you know where to look.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Planful
    I only give a 9 rating rather than a 10 rating because it seems that every day around 2pm we see a slowdown in the use of Planful. I have requested our internal IT department verify that it is not an internal issue and have been assured it is the tool. We have not yet reached out to Planful to do extensive research to solve this issue.
    Read full review
    Performance
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Planful
    Again, the system is very reliable and, for the most part, runs very quick and smooth. When running larger queries, it does take some time, and during budgeting season our users experienced slower loading times, but nothing that raises concerns outside of normal network issues. Occasionally, as with any software we use, it will crash and you have to restart, but that does not happen very often.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Microsoft
    While I have never contacted Microsoft directly for product support, for some reason there's a real prejudice against MS Access among most IT support professionals. They are usually discouraging when it comes to using MS Access. Most of this is due to their lack of understanding of MS Access and how it can improve one's productivity. If Microsoft invested more resources towards enhancing and promoting the use of MS Access then maybe things would be different.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Planful
    Sometimes we get great help when using Planful's support team and other times we don't. In particular, there is one person that often responds to our support tickets who is less than helpful, hence the reason for the 5 out of 10 rating. As a result, most of the time we reach out to our Planful consulting group as they provide faster and better support
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Planful
    My team has attended training offered several times before/during the Planful Perform conference. This training has been extremely useful and we always learn something we didn't know prior to the training. The trainers are always very knowledgeable and more than willing to help each and every user after the training with specific questions regarding their environment. Planful also offers training and certifications on their training hub. I have completed a couple of the certifications. The courses are easy to follow along with and very informative. Additionally, Planful schedules webinars pretty regularly. They'll email their customers and allow you to register to participate live. They also record these sessions so you can refer back to them at a later date or if you are unable to attend at the time the webinar is offered, you can register anyway and get access to the recording. Their training has improved year over year!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Planful
    Planful provides a lot of online training support. There's so many options for training. Admin Learning Courses, User Learning Courses. Plus they have several webinars devoted to the tool and the new features they release. New Releases can be practiced in a Sandbox Environment prior to going live in Production
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Microsoft
    there is no key idea, since it is easy to implement Microsoft Access
    Read full review
    Planful
    After going through the initial implementation with Host Analytics and a re-implementation with Cervello (due to an ERP change, not due to a poor initial implementation), I've learned that you really must rely on your internal staff to bear most of the implementation burden. Use the vendor or partners for ideas and best-practice suggestions, and some of the easy-but-time-consuming work. Since you will ultimately be using and maintaining the application, you should be able to do most of it yourself.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Microsoft
    Excel is a fantastic - robust application that can do so much so easily. Its easy to train and understand. However - excel does not provide a reporting function and that is typically where we will suggest a move to [Microsoft] Access. [Microsoft] Access requires a little more knowledge of data manipulation.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Planful
    Prior to joining the company, we tried to implement Vena but were unsuccessful. There we're a few reasons it didn't work out, but a lot of it related to the implementation team they provided. In just the first week with Planful, we achieved more progress than we did in several months with Vena.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Planful
    From our experience, Planful is only used in 2 overhead departments in our organization. We easily added another overhead department, but they decided against using Planful for their workforce and financial planning. Removing them from our environment was extremely easy.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Microsoft
    • Not having to recreate queries or reports every time you want to use them.
    • Once an item is created and saved as part of the database, you save manpower by not having to recreate them.
    • ROI from a usability standpoint is great. Solid product with great functionality that requires low maintenance usually.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Planful
    • Has allowed users to view a real-time P&L in a way they weren't able to do with Qlik.
    • Budget to Actual analysis has become much more streamlined and actionable
    • Long-range plan process has been significantly streamlined and a lot of time has been cut out of the process.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Planful Screenshots

    Screenshot of the Planful Planform DashboardScreenshot of Planful for FinanceScreenshot of Planful for MarketingScreenshot of ReportsScreenshot of a Capacity Planning TemplateScreenshot of Integrations