Planful

Score8.2 out of 10

280 Reviews and Ratings

Products

Planful

Products

What is Planful?

Planful is a cloud-based enterprise performance management (EPM) suite. It includes financial applications for modeling, planning, consolidation, reporting and analytics.

Categories & Use Cases

Media

Screenshot of the Planful Planform Dashboard

Screenshot of a Capacity Planning Template

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Screenshot of the Planful Planform Dashboard

Single Sign-On (SSO)
Allows users to use one set of login credentials to access multiple applications
Category average: 0
Flat file integration
Integration of flat files like text documents and comma separated files
Category average: 0
Direct links to 3rd-party data sources
Integration with external applications like ERP, CRM, HCM
Category average: 0

Color-coded scorecards
Track and analyze performances with interactive, color-coded balanced scorecards.
Category average: 0
Responsive Design for Web Access
Web design aimed at producing easy-to-read sites across a range of different devices.
Category average: 0
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
In-app dashboard reports and data visualization.
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#1 most frequent

Manufacturing

19.5%

109 installations of 560

“Reduced Accounting Close by 2 days.”
— Accounting Manager, Luna Innovations (201-500 employees)

#2 most frequent

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services

17.5%

98 installations of 560

“It has significantly shrunk the amount of time for Finances close review”
— SR FPA Manager, Integrate (51-200 employees)

#3 most frequent

Information

17.3%

97 installations of 560

Ben Watts View profile

Accounting Manager in Finance and Accounting at Luna Innovations (201-500 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Planful as our budgeting and consolidation software for our whole company which is comprised of many legal entities and multiple ERP systems. By having a single source to consolidate all of our financial information, it has vastly improved our reporting and budgeting process to where we can spend more time analyzing the results.

Pros

Reporting Capabilities
Budgeting and Forecasting
Foreign Currency Translation

Cons

Limited visualizations. There is a dashboard with basic visualizations but they are limited. Additionally, its very difficult to include visuals in a report collection distribution.

Return on Investment

Reduced Accounting Close by 2 days.
It has improved our reporting capabilities by allowing us to report in Business Units and produce cash flow statements.
More visibility into what is driving our variances from budget and has allowed us to identify cost savings

Other Software Used

NetSuite ERP, Workiva

Willy Zhang

Corporate Financial Reporting Manager in Finance and Accounting at American Rheinmetall (5001-10,000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We have 3 separate companies with 3 separate ERP systems. Planful is our consolidation tool so that we can consolidate all the financial data seamlessly. Also, we utilize Planful for budget and forecasting.

Pros

Consolidation of financial data
Budget and forecasting
Custom reporting

Cons

Ease of use
Auto refreshing more frequently

Return on Investment

Timeliness of financial information
Accuracy of financial information

Other Software Used

Deltek Costpoint

Jennie Rush View profile

Sr. Financial Business Specialist in Finance and Accounting at Kiewit (501-1000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Planful ) at a department level here for budgeting and forecasting our department costs. It is helping us manage our workforce as well as stay on budget for the year. We have been able to complete a rolling forecast and allows our money managers to budget better than they ever have in the past. Because we are doing so well managing our finances, we’ve recognized ways that we can help other home office depts be more successful in their workforce planning and financials. In 2021, had Kiewit Technology Group not used Planful, we may not have been under budget. So, our dept being under budget resulted in All Overhead Depts coming in under budget.

Pros

Workforce Planning Enhancements have been huge for our dept.
Support has increased significantly since we started four years ago
They are able to be used on Cloud
Providing customers monthly releases of enhanced/new products
Always working with their customers on how they can better the tool

Cons

Need to make some manual processes automatic
Would like to allow hierarchies to be scenario specific
Would like a PowerBI integration

Return on Investment

Increased awareness of financials by our money managers
Coming under budget last year was a huge accomplishment for us and made us look like rockstars to all overhead depts.
Reporting is quick and easy to use
REPORTING! At the click of a button, we have Actuals for our entire dept. Our managers can update their forecast and in seconds, all their reports are up to date.
We’ve created a solid Month End Process & Financial Calendar for our money managers that lays out all important dates (month end close, variance meetings, projections due, etc).
We also created additional GL’s (PTO Taken/Attrition) in our Opex Template. We specifically broke those out so that our money managers could see them, and they weren't all bundled up in one compensation item.

Other Software Used

SAP Concur, SAP SuccessFactors, Microsoft Power BI, Tableau Desktop

Usability

Verified User

Manager in Finance and Accounting (51-200 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We're using Planful for all forecasting and comparisons of actuals against Forecast and Budget. We're using it for (almost) all reporting sent from our Finance departments, including monthly automated report packets to different teams/stakeholders. One of the primary reasons for implementing Planful was to eliminate challenges related to File Access, Versioning, and View vs Write access to Forecast and Budgets that we used to have in Excel. The 2nd primary reason was that we were outgrowing Excel in wanting to Bgt/FCast by Territory/Location. We're still working towards that with Planful, but it's no longer a systems limitation.

Pros

Dynamic Reporting is powerful and cloud scheduler saves time.
The ability to use Report and Column sets to build a report once, save versions of it with different RS/CS's applied for different audiences.
Calc Accounts and Custom Members for repeated use

Cons

WFP seems to have limitations, even after having WFP PRO, in how you can report on data, Salary Increases as an example and how the DLR works (we have been burned multiple times and no longer use DLR for WFP). There isn't a way to set/save a filter, sorting by Employee Name and making a change, required you to sort by Employee Name again...
Many of our reports lose data as we close months. We've explored this with both Bakerfield and PAM team and are told it's just 'how it works' which is baffling for a solution this robust.
Dashboards have some frustrating/limitations. You can't do a trend line on a graph. You can't include Dashboards in Report Collection/Packets and send them via CloudScheduler.

Return on Investment

One of the main ROIs is just the increased OML level of our Finance Department, and how Planful has eliminated bottlenecks and limitations of our previously used Budget/Forecast spreadsheets and reports. The Finance Team feels like they're "leading the way" and have eliminated (or are on the path to eliminate) obstacles before we have them.

Alternatives Considered

Phocas Business Intelligence and Budgyt

Other Software Used

BILL, BILL Spend & Expense, Avalara, ConnectBooster, a Kaseya company, ConnectWise PSA

Verified User

Analyst in Finance and Accounting (10,001+ employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Planful for daily operations, data storage, internal reporting, and various types of analysis. The system allows us to have all our data in one system that can be trusted by everyone who uses it. It also allows us to have our data secured and private. The system also allows us to personalize it to meet our needs. Planful is at the center of my position's responsibilities, as it provides all the necessary data.

Pros

Flexibility in personalizing the system.
Keeping data secure.
Handling a large amount of data.

Cons

Speed when data becomes too large.
Interface personalization.
Dashboard limitation.

Return on Investment

Time Savings when it comes to data storage and aggregation.
Certainty that the data is secure and private.
Allow to create a more reliable and precise budget.

Planful

What is Planful?

Categories & Use Cases

Media

Planful Key Features

Top Performing Features

Single Sign-On (SSO)

Flat file integration

Direct links to 3rd-party data sources

Areas for Improvement

Color-coded scorecards

Responsive Design for Web Access

Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile

Most Frequent Users

Manufacturing

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services

Information

Planful Reviews

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Other Software Used

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Other Software Used

Usability

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

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Planful Alternatives