A budget and forecast tool that makes financial planning easy!

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.

The reporting capabilities allow us to share data
with multiple departments. We have bi-weekly management meetings where almost
all reporting is pulled from Planful (forecast updates, headcount trends,
workforce changes, budget updates, etc). We also can run reports for other
departments based on the attributes we use in Planful (i.e. Employee work
location report, YTD travel expenses, etc).

I support all 25 Money Managers that we have using Planful. Because the tool is so easy to use, it allows me to provide data to Money Managers in minutes. They can access their financials in real time at the click of a button. It's incredibly easy to use and makes life easier for our Technology Dept.

Prior to Planful we used a
custom-built tool with an excel interface called Projects Utility. It was very
painful because when multiple money managers were in it at the same time, it would
bog down the program. To get new financials to populate, it would take 20
minutes or more of spinning for the data to process. We relied on this
tool and spreadsheets out of SAP (our ERP system) to manage our financials.
There were so many side spreadsheets. Now everything is available at the click of our mouse.

Reporting is great. There's so many filter options that it makes creating the report you want super easy. You can choose what you want, run it, then make changes if needed. Then you save it when you're done. It's that quick.

Our money managers have some challenges navigating the tool when they aren't in it for awhile. But they can view their cost centers with ease and pull our standard reports and create off those as needed. I have monthly variance
meetings with our money managers where we discuss their previous month’s budget
vs their actuals making sure they are accurately forecasting their cost. Then
we review their HR templates for people changes (pay rates, transfers, new
hires, terminations, etc). We’ve streamlined processes by having it all in one
system and it is updated in real time.

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 are collaborating with Money Managers on a daily basis. We interact with the tool constantly and can make changes any time we need. Looking forward to using the new Planful Predict feature to help even more with data accuracy.

I was actually at the Planful Perform conference in 2019 and they had a Tech Support Area. I came with a list of issues I was having and the Planful Employee sat down with me and went through every single issue. I was amazed at the time they spent and devoted to me.

Not sure that we would've. But now that we are a satisfied customer, we meet with customer prospects to tell them why we love the tool. I wish we could've done that prior to our Implementation.

The best thing I can say is ask ALL the questions. Don't think you know it, ask.

I wasn't part of this process so I can't really speak to the custom code or customized user interface.

We did not. We actually use a Third Party Consultant (Top Down) for additional support.

Just make sure you understand the process and know how to fix issues as they arise.

I was not involved in that.

No tips because we have a great relationship with the vendor.