Quantrix vs. SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)

If you find yourself in the ocean of traditional spreadsheets, overwhelmed by broken links, errors, model audit problems, hardwiring, etc. here is a lifebuoy for you. If you want to have full flexibility in your budgeting and forecasting in contrast to ERPs with rigid structures and one-size-fits-all concept. If you are small or medium size company and do not want to invest in costly enterprise solutions. If you need a fast implementation https://youtu.be/5W_q5Xhw5fg

SAP BPC is well suited for complex planning and consolidations needs where the underlying transactional system is SAP ECC. It suits well if the organization has separate teams with BPC, ABAP, BW, Basis, Hana skillset. SAP BPC is less appropriate for organizations using Agile methodology. It is not suitable for organizations in a hyper-growth cycle as the installation and implementation is time-consuming. It will not work for organizations where the planning and budgeting needs keep changing frequently. The UI of SAP BPC is not very intuitive and very difficult to set up a dynamic dashboard for senior executives and officials of CxO.

Incentivized

• Building complex financial planning model availing of a multidimensional data structure coupled with a powerful formula language, with the immediacy and intuitiveness typical of spreadsheets
• Implement quickly model modifications (new products, new scenarios, new time periods) simply adding new "items" to "categories" (corresponding to dimensions in a multidimensional data model)
• Scale up models to very large datasets with very fast computation times
• Easily import data from text files, other Quantrix models and external databases via DataLink and DataNAV
• Save snapshots of tables computed in Quantrix to external databases via DataPush

Incentivized

• SAP BPC is real time data. You can send information into the system and see it reflected in your reports immediately. Other systems may require a manual push into a reporting system.
• SAP BPC is a shared reporting tool, so multiple users can be working in a model/environment at the same time, real time. This is especially helpful if your workbooks incorporated multiple processes requiring multiple users to get into the same model.
• SAP BPC is a powerful tool designed to help all facets of the company, from cash flow to capital expenditures to headcount management to financial planning to consolidation.

Incentivized

• Hard to be critical of the Quantrix team as I know they strive to produce the best product possible. I suppose the next thing on my wish list would be the application of the new Solver functionality to be available in the Qloud.
• A big help for new users would be a good book on transitioning from Excel or other environment into Quantrix. I know first hand it can be difficult to transition when having to learn the program through a help guide, forums and tech support. I had a lot of trial and error in my journey to producing the desired models. On one hand it was a valuable method as it taught me a lot of what not to do, but I will admit it was not the most efficient way to do things.
• Would also love to see local user groups being formed at some point in the future. Quantrix puts on a fantastic conference once a year in beautiful Maine, but it is a big journey for someone in Southern California (and limited to one or two days a year). I would like to see some local chapters formed in different areas of the country so local Quantrix users can get together more often and collaborate (maybe a quarterly or semi-annual meetup?). Our Quantrix community is still relatively small and may be a difficult task for some areas, but is also the very reason why this would be great idea.

• Being from a law firm, the system needed a lot of custom tailoring in order to fit our full needs (although many companies could say the same thing). Although the ability to highly customize the system to the company's needs is a positive, it frequently results in the system responding in unexplainable and unrepeatable ways which negatively impacts and slows the budget process. Because of the sporadic nature and variety of the issues, we are unable to repeat them on cue and therefore cannot nail down a solution.

Incentivized

For a newbie it can be difficult until you get the hang of the system. Quantrix is a very logical system, once you understand its underlying ideas.

Unlike other SAP traditional products, SAP BPC was meant to be simple and familiar to financial users

Incentivized

We need a big support team with various skillset like BPC, ABAP, BW, HANA, FICO etc

Incentivized

SAP BPC training content and trainers are very good. The training is structured and provides a very good understanding of the product features and functionalities. I attended 6 separate training sessions of week-long or more. I had very good experience in all the sessions. The training is organized very well.

Incentivized

SAP Training contents are very good, informative and exhaustive.

Incentivized

The implementation was carried out in two phases spread over a period of 4 years with 2 upgrades in between. We also had multiple upgrades to HANA.

Incentivized

Overall, I was not part of the ultimate decision to purchase Quantrix. I terms of user-friendliess and robust reporting capabilities I do think Tableau has Quantrix outclassed. That being said, Quantrix does provide more in-depth analyses for our relevant data and provides better modeling for our forecasts out of the box. The accuracy of the tools output is also much better

Incentivized

With Hyperion we struggled as it didn’t have integrated planning and consolidation, whereas BPC does have it. BPC is easier for reporting as it is Excel-based. Also BPC has prepackaged business process flows that helped a lot. Hyperion on the other hand has a faster response time for user queries or report generation.

Incentivized

• Capacity forecasting used to take hours to calculate with a ton of manual modifications. Quantrix has automated that so a model can be updated at any time with a click of a button
• The accuracy of the models is incredible. It took some tweaking to add in data scubbers, but now it runs almost flawlessly
• The confidence the management teams have in the output of the model is amazing. Before, people would question the output, have you rebuild it, and then compare. Now the report comes out and the output has high confidence.

Incentivized

• Office administrators are able to enter data directly, freeing up accounting staff.
• Dependent expenses such as taxes and benefits are automatically calculated, saving time for accounting staff.
• Single source of data for budget information ensures consistency of information when reporting to senior management.

Incentivized