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A cloud based EPM solution your FP&A team can grow with!
Updated December 15, 2023

A cloud based EPM solution your FP&A team can grow with!

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

CPM Suite,Consolidation,Budgeting,Analytics,Decision Hub

Overall Satisfaction with Planful

Planful is being used by our organization to improve the month end/quarterly consolidation/close process. It is mainly being used by our accounting and finance departments and has helped us reduce the number of days it takes to close each month. The application allows us to store all of our data in one cloud-based database as opposed to a huge Excel workbook with many, many spreadsheets. Additionally, anyone in our organization can access the real-time data in Host from any location since all of the data is stored in the cloud.
  • The Planful Cloud EPM Suite does a great job keeping all of our actual, forecast, and budget data together in one place. Loading new data into the application is fairly straight forward and allows us to quickly provide reports and analyses to our senior leadership team each month/quarter.
  • The Planful Spotlight Excel-Add In Tool is helpful for users who are more familiar with building and creating reports in Excel. While the reporting module in the core application is very easy to use and navigate, often times our team will utilize the Excel add-in tool to build more complex reports using the data from Planful as many of us tend to have more experience with excel based reporting.
  • Using Planful has allowed us to drastically reduce the number of days it takes to close each month. We quickly load data via the data load rule, use the consolidations module to input any adjusting journal entries, and from there we are able to jump right into financial reporting and analysis.
  • The speed of the application has sometimes been a bit slow, particularly at year end.
  • Planful has reduced the time it takes us to close from approximately a week and a half to approximately 2-3 days.
  • The Planful Application is currently being supported solely by our Accounting and FP&A team with no support from the IT Department.
Planful allows us to collaborate on financial plans within the finance department through it's dynamic and structured planning modules. We have many users throughout the organization that use Planful to input and complete their annual budgets as well as monthly forecasts. Planful also allows us to publish and automatically send MTD, QTD, YTD, and LTM P&Ls to each of our individual entities each month after consolidation is done.
We've always had our finance needs within one platform, so I'm not sure if there's really been any added benefit here...
N/A

Do you think Planful delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with Planful's feature set?

Yes

Did Planful live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Planful go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Planful again?

Yes

The Planful EPM Suite would be well suited for an organization that is currently closing and consolidating in Excel each month. Additionally, it would be great for an organization that is growing quickly and acquiring new entities on a regular basis.

Planful Feature Ratings

7.0
Long-term financial planning
7
Financial budgeting
7
Forecasting
Not Rated
Scenario modeling
7
Management reporting
7
8.8
Financial data consolidation
10
Journal entries and reports
10
Multi-currency management
Not Rated
Intercompany Eliminations
5
Minority Ownership
Not Rated
Local and consolidated reporting
10
Detailed Audit Trails
Not Rated
9.5
Financial Statement Reporting
10
Management Reporting
10
Excel-based Reporting
10
Automated board and financial reporting
8
XBRL support for regulatory filing
Not Rated
Not Rated
Personalized dashboards
Not Rated
Color-coded scorecards
Not Rated
KPIs
Not Rated
Cost and profitability analysis
Not Rated
Key Performance Indicator setting
Not Rated
Benchmarking with external data
Not Rated
10.0
Flat file integration
10
Excel data integration
10
Direct links to 3rd-party data sources
Not Rated
Not Rated
Pixel Perfect reports
Not Rated
Customizable dashboards
Not Rated
Report Formatting Templates
Not Rated
Not Rated
Drill-down analysis
Not Rated
Formatting capabilities
Not Rated
Report sharing and collaboration
Not Rated
Not Rated
Publish to Web
Not Rated
Publish to PDF
Not Rated
Report Versioning
Not Rated
Report Delivery Scheduling
Not Rated
Not Rated
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
Not Rated
Predictive Analytics
Not Rated
Not Rated
Multi-User Support (named login)
Not Rated
Role-Based Security Model
Not Rated
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
Not Rated
Report-Level Access Control
Not Rated
Single Sign-On (SSO)
Not Rated
Not Rated
Responsive Design for Web Access
Not Rated
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
Not Rated

Planful Features and Attributes

Sometimes we get great help when using Planful's support team and other times we don't. In particular, there is one person that often responds to our support tickets who is less than helpful, hence the reason for the 5 out of 10 rating. As a result, most of the time we reach out to our Planful consulting group as they provide faster and better support.
For the most part, the system is extremely usable. The consolidation and reporting modules are straight-forward and easy to use as long as everything is set-up properly during implementation. The one module that can be somewhat difficult to use is the Workforce Planning module of Structured Planning. Additionally, the reports that come from Workforce Planning aren't as robust as we need them to be.
We don't necessarily have access to real-time data using Planful. We have to consolidate our entity trial balances prior to accessing the monthly financials.
For the most part, Planful has eliminated the need for manual processes and manual adjustments to reports.
The only time we've received exceptional support for Planful was through an Implementation Consultant we worked with to get our Structured Planning module set-up and utilized. The actual Planful support team that responds to support tickets has been less than helpful for the most part.

Using Planful

Finance, Accounting
2 - System Admins
  • Consolidation
  • Budgeting
  • Forecasting
  • Rolling Forecasts
  • Workforce Planning
  • We don't currently use Planful Predict, but hope to sometime in the near future
I'm not the decision maker as it relates to renewing our use of Planful, so I am unable to answer this question accurately.

Evaluating Planful and Competitors

  • Cloud Solutions
  • Scalability
  • Ease of Use
Ease of use, quick implementation, and scalability were key factors in the decision that I believe led to the decision to purchase Planful. I was not part of that decision, but from what I have been told, those were key factors.
I wasn't part of that process so I am unable to accurately answer this question.

Planful Support

ProsCons
Kept well informed
Quick Initial Response
Slow Resolution
Problems left unsolved
Escalation required
Need to explain problems multiple times
Support doesn't seem to care
Not that I am aware of...

Using Planful

ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Familiar
None
  • Loading Data
  • Entering Adjusting Journal Entries
  • Running Financial Reports
  • Workforce Planning