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Through Anaplan create monthly re-forecasts that deliver real business insights
December 05, 2023

Through Anaplan create monthly re-forecasts that deliver real business insights

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Anaplan

We use
Anaplan across the business, starting with a model that forecasts
subscriptions to our publication using historical data and
different business assumptions. From this we can forecast revenues, and
combined with forecasts of revenues from other parts of the business, we can
generate a P&L, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow for the Group. Anaplan
allows us to reforecast regularly throughout the financial year, at minimal
effort compared to traditional forecasting tools, which allows our leadership
team to make important business decisions as economic circumstances change.
It is easy to integrate different models, so we have extended the platform to
include headcount/payroll data which then feeds into the financial statements. We have
identified a further half dozen use cases to build over the next 12 to 18
months, including a dedicated Cost Allocation model, a Scenario Planning model and an ESG model.
  • Scenario Planning and Variance Analysis
  • Workforce Planning
  • Cost Allocation
  • Sandbox area for quick calculations
  • Better integration with Microsoft Excel / Google Sheets
  • User list subsets
  • Moved from quarterly reforecasting to monthly reforecasting
  • Managed to integrate Salesforce data into the planning process
  • Can generate multiple scenarios that drive real business decisions

Do you think Anaplan delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Anaplan's feature set?

Yes

Did Anaplan live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Anaplan go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Anaplan again?

Yes

Anaplan is an excellent tool for budgeting and forecasting, particularly where this involves multiple stakeholders in different departments. The platform can accommodate complex business structures (regions, countries, divisions, departments, etc., right down to general ledger accounts) and it is easy to update these and make changes within the system, so that models can be adapted and reused as the business evolves. This speeds up the planning process, allowing more time for scenario modelling and variance analysis - much higher value added activities! Models can be rolled forward as time progresses and new use cases can be easily integrated into the system as required. There are numerous ways of uploading data and automating processes. It's an incredibly versatile system.

Anaplan Feature Ratings

10.0
Long-term financial planning
10
Financial budgeting
10
Forecasting
10
Scenario modeling
10
Management reporting
10
9.3
Financial data consolidation
10
Journal entries and reports
9
Local and consolidated reporting
9
Detailed Audit Trails
9
8.3
Financial Statement Reporting
10
Management Reporting
8
Excel-based Reporting
7
9.8
Personalized dashboards
9
Color-coded scorecards
10
Cost and profitability analysis
10
Key Performance Indicator setting
10
8.3
Flat file integration
10
Excel data integration
8
Direct links to 3rd-party data sources
7
10.0
Customizable dashboards
10
Ad-hoc Reporting ()
Not Rated
10.0
Publish to PDF
10
Report Versioning
10
Data Discovery and Visualization ()
Not Rated
10.0
Role-Based Security Model
10
Report-Level Access Control
10
7.7
Responsive Design for Web Access
8
Mobile Application
8
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
7

Anaplan Reliability

We have managed to leverage Anaplan for financial planning and forecasting across the business. It is now used by almost every department, with more than 50 users (but I know of companies that have hundreds of users) and still the platform is quick and reliable. It is easy to make changes to divisions and departments or add users and apply different user settings - the core part of the model is not affected and end users can continue their work without any disruption.
There are very few outages. Maintenance is scheduled on two or three Saturdays per month, so as not to affect businesses. When there is an outage, users are kept informed of progress to restore the platform and typically this takes no more than an hour. Anaplan customer support is very responsive if we ever have questions about platform issues.
Unless a model is poorly constructed, the platform can accommodate tens or even hundreds of users without any impact on model performance. Dashboard pages load quickly, reports can be exported to Excel or pdf quickly, and integrations with other systems can be scheduled for quiet times of the day. Adding new use cases to the platform should also have minimal impact on performance if done in a careful way and following best practice principles.