Centage (Budget Maestro & Analytics Maestro) - great reporting/budgeting tool
Our main use of the Centage tool has been around reporting actuals. We are a complex company with multiple subsidiaries, multiple …
Overview
What is Centage?
Centage (Planning Maestro) offers a way to plan, budget, forecast and report financial performance by enabling finance teams to see into the future, and test the impact of different scenarios, in order to make faster decisions with confidence. The software streamlines…
Recent Reviews
Popular Features
- Financial budgeting (11)9.898%
- Role-Based Security Model (10)9.292%
- Multi-User Support (named login) (10)9.191%
- Management reporting (11)8.686%
Reviewer Pros & Cons
Pricing
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What is Centage?
Centage (Planning Maestro) offers a way to plan, budget, forecast and report financial performance by enabling finance teams to see into the future, and test the impact of different scenarios, in order to make faster decisions with confidence. The software streamlines the entire planning process,…
Entry-level set up fee?
- Setup fee required
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.centage.com/pricing
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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The SAP Analytics Cloud solution brings together analytics and planning with integration to SAP applications and access to heterogenous data sources. As the analytics and planning solution within SAP Business Technology Platform, SAP Analytics Cloud supports trusted insights and integrated planning…
Features
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Product Details
- About
- Integrations
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is Centage?
Centage (Planning Maestro) offers a way to plan, budget, forecast and report financial performance by enabling finance teams
to see into the future, and test the impact of different scenarios, in order to make faster decisions with confidence. The software streamlines the entire planning process, delivering sophisticated financial intelligence to empowers users to make faster, more informed decisions, so they can react quickly to market changes, take intelligent risks and
capitalize on new opportunities.
Centage Features
Budgeting, Planning, and Forecasting Features
- Supported: Long-term financial planning
- Supported: Financial budgeting
- Supported: Forecasting
- Supported: Scenario modeling
- Supported: Management reporting
Consolidation and Close Features
- Supported: Financial data consolidation
- Supported: Local and consolidated reporting
Financial Reporting and Compliance Features
- Supported: Financial Statement Reporting
- Supported: Management Reporting
- Supported: Excel-based Reporting
- Supported: Automated board and financial reporting
Analytics and Reporting Features
- Supported: Personalized dashboards
- Supported: Cost and profitability analysis
- Supported: Key Performance Indicator setting
Integration Features
- Supported: Flat file integration
- Supported: Excel data integration
- Supported: Direct links to 3rd-party data sources
BI Standard Reporting Features
- Supported: Customizable dashboards
Ad-hoc Reporting Features
- Supported: Drill-down analysis
- Supported: Formatting capabilities
- Supported: Predictive modeling
- Supported: Report sharing and collaboration
Report Output and Scheduling Features
- Supported: Publish to Web
- Supported: Publish to PDF
- Supported: Report Versioning
- Supported: Report Delivery Scheduling
Data Discovery and Visualization Features
- Supported: Predictive Analytics
Access Control and Security Features
- Supported: Multi-User Support (named login)
- Supported: Role-Based Security Model
- Supported: Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
- Supported: Report-Level Access Control
- Supported: Single Sign-On (SSO)
Centage Screenshots
Centage Integrations
Centage Competitors
Centage Technical Details
| Deployment Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
| Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
Reviewers rate Financial budgeting highest, with a score of 9.8.
The most common users of Centage are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
Comparisons
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Reviews and Ratings
(17)
Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
- Business Problems Solved
- Pros
- Cons
- Recommendations
Many users heavily rely on the Budget Maestro platform for its Analytics Maestro capabilities. With this feature, users can create custom dashboards that allow them to compare actuals against the budget. These visuals have been well-perceived across organizations, as they make it easy to cascade the results to multiple offices with just a simple click. Planning Maestro is also widely used as the primary budgeting system. It provides an efficient and robust platform for creating multiple budget versions, detailed budgeting with descriptions, data linking of expenses to revenues, personnel/salary budgeting, monthly budgeting, simplified reporting, different hierarchies, and work flow. This makes it a valuable tool for developing annual budgets and preparing monthly/quarterly financial statements for management and the Board of Directors. Additionally, many outsourced accounting and CFO staff recommend using Budget Maestro for organizations dealing with cash management and budgeting concerns, as it helps alleviate the fatigue of using Excel-based techniques. Before partnering with Planning Maestro, companies often faced issues when preparing staffing plans, especially when dealing with last-minute changes. Fortunately, Planning Maestro has been able to streamline this process and make it much more efficient. Lastly, the Analytics Maestro Excel add-in tool simplifies the creation of adhoc reports within Excel, allowing users to leverage all the great features of Excel for analysis purposes.
Value-adding platform: According to several users, the Analytics Maestro Platform has been found to add tremendous value to their business operations. They appreciate the newer cloud-based version that eliminates size constraints and allows for seamless usage.
Responsive customer support: Reviewers consistently praise the platform for its extremely supportive and timely customer support. The quick response from the implementation and ongoing support teams in addressing any issues or concerns is highly valued by users.
Detailed budgeting feature: Many users find the detailed budgeting feature of the platform particularly useful as it allows them to work with shared chart of accounts, providing names and descriptions for better organization and clarity in financial planning. The option to upload budgets using excel-based templates simplifies the budgeting process further.
Rollout Time: Some users have found the rollout of the cloud-based solution to be time-consuming, which impacted their productivity and ability to fully utilize the system's features.
Learning Curve: Reviewers mentioned that learning how to use the product to its fullest capabilities with the older version was a time-consuming process. They had to invest additional time and effort into training themselves or their teams on using the product effectively.
Delayed Refreshing: Users have expressed frustration with the delayed refreshing when changing dimensions or budgets in the system. This delay hinders their workflow and slows down their analysis process, leading to inefficiencies in their work.
Users commonly recommend the following:
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Analyze data and structure requirements before selecting a budgeting tool. It is important to thoroughly analyze the data and understand the organization's requirements before choosing a budgeting tool. This allows for a better fit between the tool and their needs.
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Utilize support during the setup process. Users advise taking advantage of the support provided by Budget Maestro during the setup process to avoid any potential mistakes. They appreciate the assistance in ensuring a smooth implementation.
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Consider using Centage or Budget Maestro for budgeting and forecasting needs. Users highly recommend Centage as one of the best budgeting tools for complementing data needs. They also praise Budget Maestro as a reliable budgeting and forecasting tool, citing its efficient implementation team and strong product for end users. Additionally, Budget Maestro is noted for its ability to combine multiple excel spreadsheets into one software solution.
Overall, users suggest thorough analysis of data needs, leveraging support during setup, and considering Centage or Budget Maestro for budgeting and forecasting requirements.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-5 of 5)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
March 19, 2024
Centage is Great for Consolidated Reporting and Planning
Our current system's reports are outdated and difficult to manage. With Centage we are able to bring in our actual data, consolidate, create appropriate intercompany eliminations, and complete all of our financial reporting, including plan data, with consistency and accuracy.
- Reporting Through Analytics Maestro
- Handling complex calculations - called Drivers - to plan
- Compiling, reporting and budgeting with a lot of different dimensions
- A little more speed in making those complex calculations.
- A little more speed deploying the data from actuals into the plan.
86%
8.6
85%
8.5
92.5%
9.3
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75%
7.5
10%
1.0
63.33333333333333%
6.3
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80%
8.0
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- Centage has helped provide better, consistent, and more accurate reporting, which was well worth the cost.
February 07, 2024
Working with Planning Maestro - Centage
We use Centage's Planning Maestro for Annual Budgeting and Reforecasting purposes. It's really good as all the inputs entered by all the budget holders get consolidated in our income statement in real time. We can manage access to specific accounts, cost centers and project codes to each budget holder, which makes the process more efficient and minimizes errors. We also use they allocations methods, which are very useful in our case. There is also the possibility of managing different versions of Budgets and reforecasts.
- Security setting at the level of the user
- Expense allocation methods
- Reporting of Income statement and others
- Easy definition of parameters such as accounts, cost centers and project cods
- We would need the actuals to be brought from our accounting system GP by project code. This is missing at the moment and we are a project driven organization.
96%
9.6
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20%
2.0
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- It's hard to calculate a ROI figure in this case, but I would say that the investment has been beneficial streamlining our budgeting process. We still have potential in developing much more in terms of dashboards and reports
February 07, 2024
My Experience with Centage Planning and Analytics Maestro
Datalogics uses Planning Maestro for its annual plan and any updates. Any company worth its salt knows that planning is >50% of success! Having a real time web-based tool makes the planning process easier. Centage was able to do a one-way integration with our older ERP Dynamics SL, loading our actuals into Planning Maestro. The implementation and support we receive from Centage is very good. We were able to get up and running in the expected the frame.
- Planning personnel with all the related benefit expenses is very accurate and we are able to forecast increases as well.
- Storing separate versions of the budget allows us to finalize for the year and have access to the data while we update the default plan with any changes.
- I ilke the way you can add intelligence see the detail of calculations below th eline item.
- I like writing Planning Maestro reports to see drill downs of any item and tie them to our ERP Budget
- The Analytics Maestro reports are pretty confusing to create and update. I wish it worked as well as Management Reporter. I continue to load budget into Dynamics SL and run reports there at the GL account/subaccount level
- I wish that vendors and customers were based structures that could be auto-updated from my ERP like GL accounts. I have to add them manually.
- Having to manually update our cube seems unnecessary. Shouldn't the cube update itself whenever we make a change?
90%
9.0
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52.5%
5.3
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20%
2.0
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43.33333333333333%
4.3
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100%
10.0
100%
10.0
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- Without Centage we would not have a plan
June 19, 2023
Planning Maestro high benefit to cost ratio
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Planning Maestro as our primary budgeting system. PM provides an efficient, relatively simple but robust, budgeting platform that allow us to have multiple budget versions, detailed budgeting with descriptions, data linking of expenses to revenues where applicable, personnel/salary budgeting, monthly budgeting (if preferred), simplified reporting, different hierararchies (data organization), work flow, etc for modest price. We could also use it for cash flow and balance sheet projections if we desired to do so.
- Detailed budgeting even for shared chart of accounts with names and descriptions
- Multiple budget versions, easy to copy versions
- Easy navigation
- Several layers of security rules
- Uploading of budgets using excel based templates
- Several options for filtering
- Personnel or salary budgeting
- Monthly budgeting
- When changing dimensions (chart of accounts) or budgets, delay refreshing until line edits are completed
- When refreshing data bases, add option to exclude static versions so they don't add processing time
92%
9.2
90%
9.0
47.5%
4.8
33.333333333333336%
3.3
63.33333333333333%
6.3
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30%
3.0
25%
2.5
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78%
7.8
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- Budgeting system allows for budget transparency and single version budgets
- Efficient budgeting system that does not take time to learn and use
- Cost effective budgeting system for administrators and users
Planning Maestro stacks up well with other budgeting systems we evaluated about 10 years ago. Reasonable cost for what we need and we are grateful for timely and responsive support system.
Our company used the Budget Maestro platform since about 2014. Our team utilized the platform heavily for its Analytics Maestro capabilities being able to create custom dashboards for comparison points of actuals against the budget. The visuals we were able to produce were well perceived across our organization and the features made it possible to cascade the results to a high amount of offices with the simple click of a button.
- Analytics Maestro Platform adds tremendous value.
- Newer version offering is cloud based which adds value on size constraints.
- Customer support has always been extremely supportive and timely on responses.
- Took some time to roll out the cloud-based solution.
- The older version (not cloud-based) we used took about an hour to refresh after data load.
- The older version did take some time learning how to use the product to its fullest capabilities.
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- We were a very small company growing by acquisition so it worked well during these phases of our company growth.
- The return for our cost was tremendous especially in comparison to peers in the market.
- Analytics Maestro allowed us to grow without adding headcount by building efficient reports that can easily be mass-produced for all branches within our organization.
Our company evaluated 6 product offerings in the market place a year ago and felt Budget Maestro and Vena offered the largest return on our investment at their price points. We have always been very satisfied with the product and its customer service. Since we have grown over 600% over 4 years, many of the new layers of management used other products in prior careers and we are currently at a point where the entire organization may be transitioning to an ERP solution to manage all finance and accounting functions. I would always recommend Budget Maestro as a great budgeting and analytical tool for FP&A teams as we were able to accomplish a high amount of monthly reports with a small team over the years.