Corporate Performance Management (CPM) Software

What is Corporate Performance Management (CPM)?

Corporate performance management, also called enterprise performance management (EPM), describes the practices that help companies plan and manage the financial success of their organization. A CPM system is a finance tool that monitors and manages an organization's performance according to key performance indicators. These metrics are often finance-driven, such as revenue, spend, and return on investment. Corporate performance management can also focus on other strategic corporate goals, such as increasing operational efficiency or improving corporate strategy.

Corporate performance management systems heavily support financial budgeting, planning, and forecasting. They help leaders manage strategy and track the company’s financial health against goals. CPM tools are commonly used by the finance department but are increasingly designed to be used across the enterprise.

CPM and Business Intelligence

Corporate Performance Management (CPM) is closely related to Business Intelligence (BI). The fact that these categories are so closely related has led to some category convergence. A number of products offer both CPM and BI capabilities in the same platform.

CPM leverages the data provided by BI to guide the organization towards its strategic objectives. The metrics and scorecards that are the endpoint of BI systems are the starting point of CPM. CPM systems link those metrics to the strategic and financial goals of the organization.

BI is focused on gathering and processing disparate data and presenting it in an easy to digest form like a report, visualization, or dashboard. However, reporting is not necessarily linked to an organization’s strategy. It does not include any mechanisms for planning, controlling, or managing towards business objectives or KPIs.

CPM Software Features & Capabilities

Corporate performance management software focus on a process-oriented set of tasks that involves financial activities, including:

• Budgeting
• Planning
• Forecasting
• Financial consolidation and close
• Financial reporting and compliance
• Analytics and financial reporting
• Calculating return on investment (ROI)
• Overhead and operational costs
• Profitability modeling

Budgeting, Planning & Forecasting

In corporate performance management software, budgeting and forecasting capabilities are designed to assist with both operational short-term planning and strategic long-term planning:

• Long-term financial planning
• Financial budgeting
• Forecasting
• Scenario modeling
• Management reporting

Consolidation & Close

Consolidation and close features allow CPM software users to combine and examine data from multiple entities:

• Financial data consolidation
• Journal entries and reports
• Multi-currency management
• Intercompany eliminations
• Minority ownership
• Local and consolidated reporting
• Detailed audit trails

Financial Reporting & Compliance

These CPM tool features assist users with their financial statements and regulatory filings:

• Financial statement reporting
• Management reporting
• Excel-based reporting
• Automated board and financial reporting
• XBRL support for regulatory filing

Analytics

These tools for at-a-glance and in-depth analysis help CPM users interpret performance metrics in the context of their company's larger strategic goals:

• Personalized dashboards
• Color-coded scorecards
• KPIs
• Cost and profitability analysis
• Key Performance Indicator setting
• Benchmarking with external data

Integration

It is vitally important for a CPM system to integrate with a company's BI system. The BI system feeds the CPM system performance data. The CPM system links performance data with strategic and financial data for the purpose of higher level planning and assessment. Types of integration include:

• Flat file integration
• Excel data integration
• Direct links to 3rd-party data sources

CPM Software Comparison

To compare different CPM tools, you might want to consider evaluating options based on these factors:

1. Finance vs Strategy: Do you care more about strategic planning or financials (such as consolidation and close, reporting, etc)? Products rarely do both of these well, so depending on which is your priority, compare tools based on both capabilities. Look at feature ratings for budgeting, planning and forecasting, versus consolidation and close and reporting. Financial reporting products will likely have more complex or specialized technical capabilities.
2. Deployment type: Products may be cloud-based, on-premise, or offer both deployment types.
3. Usability: Ease of use is an important factor, even more so if your use of the CPM platform will extend beyond the Finance team. Look for comments about usability in pros & cons sections of reviews, and compare how the products rate for usability.
4. Reporting: CPM is very centered on reporting and the ability to build custom reports. Reviewers often comment on the quality of reporting, and are asked to rate products based on reporting features.

Start a CPM comparison

Pricing Information

Pricing varies widely depending on whether tools are designed to serve SMBs or enterprises. Subscription pricing structure is usually per seat per month, with lower pricing for read-only seats. Enterprises are typically paying in the region of $25k total subscription price for leading solutions.