Planful, a good tool if you have the time and skillset to properly implement
November 21, 2023
Planful, a good tool if you have the time and skillset to properly implement
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Modules Used
- Structured Planning
- Reporting
Overall Satisfaction with Planful
Our business uses Planful for easily repeatable (push button) month end and quarter end reporting. We also use it to create bottoms up forecasts and budgets. Planful has given us the ability to make changes in a forecast and see the results very quickly in reports and to keep versions in check.
- GL level forecasting/budgeting
- Push Button month end reporting
- Hierarchy control
- Structure planning is very clunky and does not give give enough flexibility to make mass changes
- Reporting struggles mixing variables together in the same report. If you want a combination between time and scenario there is no great way to make a joint scenario (We have had a support ticket out for a couple weeks to solve this with no great solution in place yet).
- Getting to certain reports requires an understanding of MDX
- Sandbox has been removed as a portion of the product and is now an upcharge meaning there is no room to test anymore without paying the absurd amount requested. Ours was removed mid contract.
- Support can be slow for issues that seem like they should already have solutions for
- Planful has saved 5-10 every month on month end reporting
- We have saved time around keeping hierarchies and parameters up to date
- It has allowed us to build in some additional monthly reports that were inconsistent before saving time around year end budgeting.
Planful has made it easier to gather information in one place and keep it up to date, especially the HRIS system data. Depending on which system you integrate with this can be a difficult process to get things up and running. The extra data gives us the option to say more yes to more complicated forecasting and reporting asks however it does come with the extra bit of knowing how to maintain the system and setting guidelines of what can and can't be done. Collaboration can be a bit tricky as multiple users cant be in the same structured planning templates at the same time but the commenting system is great once you have established rules on how you want to use them.
We decided not to bring our accounting suite into Planful as the processes were mostly already being done in Netsuite and we wanted to keep our ERP system as our single source of truth of GL data and not muddy it. This is probably best practice most companies that already have established ERP systems and processes. The reporting our the ERP system data though was a great improvement over what can be done in excel or ERP, and the extra data brought in (especially with drill through as an option) have helped keep some questions down and let users self service.
Planful seems to have the best price to performance option against the tools listed. Some of the more premium options on the market have outdated UIs and dont get updated as frequently and other in the same price category dont seem to have the same level of options and "ease" of use with an easy to understand UI. We also selected Planful because it was not excel based and gave us other options unlike Vena.
Do you think Planful delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Planful's feature set?
Yes
Did Planful live up to sales and marketing promises?
No
Did implementation of Planful go as expected?
No
Would you buy Planful again?
Yes