Planful vs Planning Maestro

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Our analysts compared Planful vs Planning Maestro based on data from our 400+ point analysis of EPM Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Product Basics

Formerly Host Analytics, Planful is a financial planning and analysis cloud platform. It accelerates end-to-end FP&A. Suitable for midsize to large-scale businesses, it helps by centralizing data and managing financial and operational processes.

It helps users plan and manage reviews, approvals and submissions and generates workflow status reports to check the performance of every department. It helps analyze asset performance by using financial budgeting and forecasting techniques with its capital planning feature. It is a scalable solution that allows companies to check the effect of projects on the overall bottom line.
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Implement Planning Maestro by Centage to simplify planning protocols and make swifter business choices during market shifts. Planning, budgeting, forecasting, reporting and analytics are its top modules. Assess numerous what-if situations and make more precise predictions.

It pinpoints where, when and why actuals deviate from projections. Obtain in-depth reports and dashboards for more transparent results. It also allows numerous data source integrations for centralization.
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$1,250 Monthly
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$950 Monthly
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Product Insights

  • Conduct Ad hoc Analysis: Simplify complex ad hoc analysis by quickly creating financial and operational models while simultaneously checking the impact of these models on the bottom line. 
  • Close Books Faster: Decrease the time it takes to close books by automating data collection, aggregation and validation. Make data secure and compliant with standards and protocols.  
  • Improve Collaboration: Collaborate in a more efficient manner with current data and real-time insights. Get the power to make quick and accurate decisions with more confidence.  
  • Get Insights: Make well-informed decisions by gaining insights from across an organization to drive long-term value and growth. Automate manual processes to gain more time for strategic planning processes, analyzing and collaborating rather than worrying about spreadsheets.  
  • Automate Manual Processes: Save time and reduce errors by automating manual financial processes. Ensure that all financial processes are done with minimum manual effort and run more efficiently.  
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  • Improved Accuracy: Reduces manual errors by automating data consolidation and calculations, ensuring more reliable financial forecasts.
  • Enhanced Collaboration: Facilitates seamless communication among team members with shared access to real-time data and collaborative planning tools.
  • Time Efficiency: Speeds up the budgeting and forecasting process by automating repetitive tasks, allowing finance teams to focus on strategic analysis.
  • Scenario Analysis: Enables users to create and compare multiple financial scenarios, helping organizations prepare for various market conditions.
  • Data Integration: Integrates with existing ERP and accounting systems, ensuring a single source of truth and reducing data silos.
  • Regulatory Compliance: Helps maintain compliance with financial regulations by providing accurate and timely financial reports.
  • Cost Management: Identifies cost-saving opportunities through detailed financial analysis and variance tracking.
  • Scalability: Adapts to the growing needs of the business, supporting increased data volumes and more complex financial models.
  • Customizable Reporting: Offers flexible reporting options that can be tailored to meet the specific needs of different stakeholders.
  • Real-Time Insights: Provides up-to-date financial data and analytics, enabling quicker decision-making and more agile responses to market changes.
  • Resource Allocation: Optimizes resource allocation by providing detailed insights into financial performance and future needs.
  • Strategic Planning: Supports long-term strategic planning with robust forecasting and budgeting tools that align with business goals.
  • Risk Management: Identifies potential financial risks and provides tools to mitigate them, enhancing overall business stability.
  • User-Friendly Interface: Features an intuitive interface that reduces the learning curve and increases user adoption across the organization.
  • Performance Tracking: Monitors key performance indicators (KPIs) to ensure that financial goals are being met and to identify areas for improvement.
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  • Modern Tools: Combine the need for structured and dynamic planning to empower organizations to make well-informed decisions in a quick and strategic manner.  
  • Financial Consolidation: Accelerate month-end closing cycles with financial consolidation. Enhance financial planning and reporting by leveraging data from a single source of truth. Get pre-built consolidation functionality for currency conversion and reporting, currency translation adjustment calculations and posting. Implement functional, administrative and setup changes without the need for IT experts. Boost teams’ agility when reacting to changes in organization, strategy, regulation and accounting protocol. Ensure trusted and consistent global reporting by automatically mapping financial data. Keep tabs from start to end on balances, and analyze financial data across consolidation activities.  
  • Structured Planning: Save time and reduce errors by automating labor-intensive financial planning activities. Avoid costly and disruptive customization fees, save time and reduce risk of error with predefined planning and reporting templates. Automate integration from any ERP, CRM or HCM. Create a single source of financial truth by automatically collecting, aggregating and validating financial data. Ensure consistency and accuracy by creating and modifying structured financial reports and elevating financial conversations. 
  • Dynamic Planning: Analyze, plan and make confident decisions with dynamic planning. Build custom-tailored financial models. Leverage customization across processes, functions and use cases. Configure planning experiences and give users the flexibility to plan for anything. Connect data sources from separate systems in one unified, cloud-based platform. Boost financial decision making with a single source of truth. Get insights and make course corrections with real-time data refreshing. Inculcate companywide collaboration culture by providing the right data at the right level to the right person.  
  • Integration: Automate data integration to reduce manual intervention and easily transform data with over 200 pre-built connectors. Adjust to automatic data processing with a growing integration platform. Check status and activity of deployed integrations from a centralized place. Ensure data integration process flows are repeatable, automated and secure, and provide audit trails required by internal and external auditors. Understand changes in data with multiple validation points across integration workflows. 
  • Reporting: Leverage reporting formats and delivery options to meet financial, management and ad hoc needs. Ensure data accuracy and transparency with self-service reporting and automated report distribution. Automate collection and aggregation of financial and business data into a single cloud-based platform. Ensure everyone is working with current and accurate information derived from a single source of truth. Boost financial IQ with self-service reporting capabilities. Create a more agile environment with impactful financial decision making. 
  • Annual Operating Plan: Build collaborative financial plans that align with business objectives. Turn annual plans into quarterly or monthly rolling forecasts, and check models for different scenarios to determine how to realign and adjust strategies.  
  • Workforce Planning: Plan accordingly for workforces by connecting HR, finance and operational data together. Create a headcount plan that can be adjusted to changing marketing requirements. Gain insight to build winning strategies and utilize employees as strategic assets. Boost financial IQ to understand and influence impacts on the financial health of workforce costs.  
  • Cash Flow Forecasting: Assess the impact of decisions by gaining complete control and visibility over finances. Reallocate cash by identifying trends and understanding levers. Mitigate cash flow risk by adjusting investment opportunities.  
  • Scenario Analysis: Analyze every option by planning across multiple case scenarios and assessing key drivers. Bring agility by optimizing current period results. Gain the flexibility to discover deeper insights across a broad range of models. Align executives and business partners with data-driven decisions. Check the impact of plan changes from every level with immediate results. 
  • Rolling Forecasts: Adjust to sudden changes, keep forecasts current and business agile with continually rolling planning periods. Automatically keep tabs on the impact of actuals on forecasted trends. Improve risk analysis by quickly identifying opportunities and risks as business landscapes evolve. Align rolling forecasts by collaborating across different departments. Gain real-time insights to redirect resources and priorities and align them with business objectives.  
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  • Planning
    • Collaborative Financial Planning: Protect private information with role-based security tools. Utilize shared comments, assumptions and audit trail tools for enhanced security. 
    • Data Gathering: Compare and contrast actuals to proposals to ensure consistent performance management. Utilize numbers and other vital information to make better business decisions. 
    • Financial Intelligence: Implement automatic workflows to push data through different pipelines while aligning with GAAP accounting standards. 
  • Budgeting
    • In-Depth Budgeting: Detect internal and external elements that impact existing budgets, including seasonal trends. Craft what-if situations for stress assessments. 
    • Financial Consolidation: Centralize entities, locations and merchandise in one system. Monitor outcomes with or without modifications. Build and allocate condensed GAAP-regulated bookkeeping reports. 
    • Workforce Planning and Budgeting: Enter information from CRM and HR solutions for an improved work plan infrastructure. Logic tools track overtime, shift differentials and other factors to align with work and pay practices. 
  • Reporting and Analytics
    • Dashboards: Display analytics in multiple dashboards for comprehensive analysis. 
    • Report Management: Format files with graphs and charts for better readability. 
    • Self-Serve Analytics: Pick pre-set benchmarks to filter report views. 
  • Forecasting
    • Cash Flow: Understand how sales, workforce, loans and capital asset plans affect cash flow. 
    • Rolling Forecasts: Craft long-term repetitive estimates that last past 12 periods. 
    • Several Report Types: Create multiple accounting reports, such as profit and loss statements, balance sheets, cash flow statements and more. 
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Product Ranking

#9

among all
EPM Software

#40

among all
EPM Software

Find out who the leaders are

Analyst Rating Summary

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Reports and Dashboards
Sales Planning
Capital Expenditure Planning
Cash Management
Project Planning
Workforce Planning
Reports and Dashboards
Profitability Modelling and Analysis
Cash Management
Capital Expenditure Planning

Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

Planful
Planning Maestro
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Capital Expenditure Planning Cash Management Financial Consolidation And Reconciliation Planning, Budgeting,and Forecasting Platform Capabilities Profitability Modelling And Analysis Project Planning Reports And Dashboards Revenue Planning Sales Planning Workforce Planning 96 96 85 80 72 94 95 100 94 100 86 94 96 75 63 77 97 76 98 77 55 100 0 25 50 75 100
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Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

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User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 82 reviews
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86%
of users recommend this product

Planful has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 86% when considering 82 user reviews from 2 recognized software review sites.

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4.29 (41)
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4.3 (41)
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Awards

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated Planful and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Sales Planning.

Sales Planning Award

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated Planning Maestro and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Workforce Planning.

Workforce Planning Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Streamlined Financial Close: Planful helps automate routine tasks like data consolidation and report generation, which can significantly reduce the time it takes to close the books each month. This efficiency is often praised by users in fast-paced environments.
Improved Forecasting Accuracy: The platform's forecasting tools leverage historical data and predictive analytics to generate more accurate forecasts. Users appreciate this feature as it allows for better-informed decision-making and resource allocation.
Enhanced Collaboration: Planful provides a centralized platform for finance teams to collaborate on budgeting, forecasting, and reporting. This feature improves communication and transparency within the department, leading to more cohesive financial strategies.
Customizable Reporting: Users frequently highlight the ability to create custom reports tailored to their specific needs. This flexibility allows finance teams to analyze data from multiple angles and gain deeper insights into their financial performance.
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Flexible Budgeting and Forecasting: Users praise Planning Maestro for its ability to handle complex budgeting and forecasting scenarios, including rolling forecasts and what-if analysis. This allows businesses to adapt to changing market conditions and make informed financial decisions.
Improved Collaboration: Planning Maestro facilitates collaboration among different departments and stakeholders, streamlining the budgeting and forecasting process. This leads to better communication and alignment across the organization.
Automated Reporting and Analysis: The platform automates reporting and analysis, saving time and effort for finance teams. Users appreciate the ability to generate insightful reports and dashboards with ease, providing valuable insights into financial performance.
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Steep Learning Curve: Many users find Planful's interface to be complex and unintuitive, requiring significant time investment to learn the system's intricacies. The abundance of features can be overwhelming for new users, leading to frustration and a slow adoption rate within organizations.
Customization Challenges: While Planful offers customization options, implementing them often requires advanced technical skills or reliance on the vendor's professional services, which can be costly. This limitation can hinder organizations with unique workflows or reporting needs from fully tailoring the software to their specific requirements.
Reporting Limitations: Some users report that generating specific or ad-hoc reports can be cumbersome in Planful. The system's pre-built reports may not always cater to every organization's needs, and creating custom reports may require technical expertise or additional support.
Performance Issues: A segment of users has mentioned experiencing slow loading times and occasional system lags, particularly when working with large datasets or complex reports. This can impact productivity and user satisfaction, especially for organizations with high data volumes or demanding reporting requirements.
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Limited Reporting Capabilities: Users have expressed frustration with the inflexibility of reporting options, making it difficult to tailor reports to specific needs.
Steep Learning Curve: The software can be challenging to learn initially, requiring significant time and effort to become proficient.
Occasional Performance Issues: Some users have reported experiencing slow loading times and occasional system glitches, impacting productivity.
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Planful has garnered a reputation for its robust financial reporting and analysis capabilities, particularly excelling in budgeting, forecasting, and consolidation. Users appreciate the software's ability to handle complex financial models and its flexibility in generating custom reports. The platform's intuitive interface and user-friendly design have also been praised, making it accessible to both finance professionals and non-financial users. However, some users have noted that the initial setup and implementation process can be time-consuming and may require significant support from Planful's team. Additionally, while Planful offers a wide range of features, some users have expressed a desire for more advanced functionality in areas such as workforce planning and project accounting. Compared to competitors like Adaptive Insights and Vena Solutions, Planful stands out for its comprehensive financial consolidation capabilities and its ability to handle large volumes of data. Its reporting and analytics tools are also considered to be more user-friendly and customizable. However, Adaptive Insights may be a better choice for organizations seeking a more cloud-based solution with stronger integrations with other business applications. Vena Solutions, on the other hand, may be more suitable for companies with complex financial modeling needs due to its Excel-based interface. Overall, Planful is best suited for mid-sized to large enterprises with complex financial reporting and analysis requirements. Its strengths lie in its budgeting, forecasting, consolidation, and reporting capabilities, making it an ideal choice for organizations looking to streamline their financial processes and gain deeper insights into their financial performance. However, companies with limited IT resources or those seeking a more cloud-based solution may want to consider alternative options.

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Is Planning Maestro the *concerto* of financial planning software, hitting all the right notes for businesses? User reviews suggest the software is a well-regarded tool for managing financial planning and analysis (FP&A) processes, but it's not without its critics. Fans of the software praise its user-friendly design and ability to streamline FP&A workflows, leading to more efficient budgeting, forecasting, and reporting. Some users specifically highlight the strong customer support as a major plus. However, some users find the software's pricing to be a barrier, while others have struggled with its complexity. Planning Maestro seems to stand out from competitors by offering a robust suite of features that cater to a variety of FP&A needs, all within a single platform. For example, its ability to integrate with existing accounting systems and automate tasks like report generation is a major selling point for users who want to ditch clunky spreadsheets and manual processes. This focus on automation and integration is a key differentiator for Planning Maestro, making it particularly appealing to businesses looking for a comprehensive solution to centralize and streamline their financial planning. Overall, Planning Maestro appears to be best suited for businesses that need a powerful, centralized platform to manage their FP&A processes. Its robust features and automation capabilities make it a good fit for companies looking to improve efficiency and gain better insights from their financial data. However, businesses on a tight budget or those with simpler FP&A needs may find the software's pricing and complexity to be drawbacks.

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