Anaplan - one of the best tools for financial planning
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use Anaplan for budgeting, forecasting and business plan - detailed plans of headcount, revenue planning and tracking Fee Earner performances. Anaplan experience encourage collaboration and accuracy of plans, as all changes are made in real time and are reflected on robust reports. Customizable management reporting pages are shared with stakeholders - they provide a trustworthy insight on current performance and future plans, accelerating decision making process. Users are praising easiness of working with Anaplan, the tool is intuitive and powerful with its connectiveness.
Pros
- All calculation in model work in real time, there's no need to run sync
- Pages are highly customizable, especially management reporting pages
- Design and build in model does not require any programming knowledge
- Anaplan support is very helpful and reply fast to any query, it makes solving system problem easy
- Native versions and working with time series makes planning easy (rolling forecast and scenario planning processes are really straightforward)
- Maintaining user access and detailed module access gives extra flexibility in tailoring user experience
Cons
- user access cam be further improved with option to mirror existing user or inherit group properties
- variance and simple sum/subtraction could be added as a layer in UX instead of line items in modules
- page which could be cross between board type and management reporting - fully customizable but still with option of input and user filter
- more robust filtering options
Return on Investment
- Improve collaboration between teams
- More accurate information
- Saved time (plan submitted in timely manner)
Usability
Other Software Used
Microsoft Power BI, Aderant Expert, SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
