Planful for Overhead Cost Planning
December 09, 2020

Planful for Overhead Cost Planning

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Modules Used

  • Planning
  • Reporting and Analytics
  • SpotlightXL

Overall Satisfaction with Planful (formerly Host Analytics)

We are using Planful to manage our overhead forecasts + headcount (+$50M annually) and monthly reporting of the overhead costs to the department heads. It resolved a problem of multiple spreadsheets being emailed to the end users and back to finance team. It provided accountability at the end user side and the finance side with a single source for the truth.

Pros

  • Headcount tracking and cost
  • Reduced cycle time on forecasting from spreadsheets
  • Tracking of where the end user is in the forecast process
  • SpotlightXL (the Excel Add-in) makes reporting easier in Excel

Cons

  • The Reporting module is not intuitive for end user and finance admin team plus very limited in formatting
  • Admin tools for setting up end users is challenge - many different areas to go to set someone up on the system
  • It reduced our overhead forecast cycle time from about 5 weeks to about 2 weeks
  • It reduced forecast burnout on the end user and the finance user by end the chase for spreadsheets and the manual roll up process
  • Reporting cycle time was reduced from 20 days to about 8 days
We have been able to benefit from the automated seeding of actuals and the previous forecast which makes the forecasting process easier for the finance team and the end users.
That is the feature that is the biggest disappointment. The Reporting module is not easy to use for the finance admin and the end user. Planful needs to offer more detailed and advance training for the user on it. It is not like Excel. The Dashboard module is very limited on customization and not easy to set-up and use.
It is easy once it is set up.
I think Planful has a lot potential and the Planful team is actively working on improving it. We use it just for overhead forecasting and reporting. It was a perfect tool to move us from a spreadsheet process with errors and single sources for the truth. We had a well defined process, so it was easy adapt into the Planful system.

Planful Feature Ratings

8.0
Long-term financial planning
9
Financial budgeting
9
Forecasting
9
Scenario modeling
Not Rated
Management reporting
5
Not Rated
Financial data consolidation
Not Rated
Journal entries and reports
Not Rated
Multi-currency management
Not Rated
Intercompany Eliminations
Not Rated
Minority Ownership
Not Rated
Local and consolidated reporting
Not Rated
Detailed Audit Trails
Not Rated
7.3
Financial Statement Reporting
Not Rated
Management Reporting
6
Excel-based Reporting
10
Automated board and financial reporting
6
5.0
Personalized dashboards
5
Color-coded scorecards
5
KPIs
5
Cost and profitability analysis
Not Rated
Key Performance Indicator setting
Not Rated
8.0
Flat file integration
8
Excel data integration
8
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
5.0
Drill-down analysis
5
Formatting capabilities
3
Report sharing and collaboration
7
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
8.0
Multi-User Support (named login)
8
Role-Based Security Model
8
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
8
Single Sign-On (SSO)
Not Rated
Not Rated
Responsive Design for Web Access
Not Rated
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
Not Rated

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