Centage

Pros

I found this product very easy to learn. That said, I am a CPA. Excellent tools for budgeting and forecasting. Very user friendly

Cons

We had some problems importing and exporting to excel. It took a while to set this system up and train staff to use it.

Pros

Planning Maestro brought a platform that allowed us to integrate into our existing accounting platform and create a structured environment we could use to refine our budgeting and forecasting process.

Cons

I don't have anything negative to say. When I have run into issues with the software I have always reached out to Centage and we have found ways to incorporate what I need into the software.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Centage

Reasons for Switching to Centage

Pros

I do like the preview of the expense and how it will look like on the P&L. It really helps me make sure that my spread method is correct. I like analytics maestro. I can use excel to build reports. Also, it is easy to use the data to create charts and graphs and make the financial data consumable to those budget owners, who may not have a fiance background. I also like the ability to refresh and update the data quickly.

Cons

Reporting. In analytics the idea of building is great, reminds me a salesforce. But it is sooooo slow on the virtual desktop. From what I understand this will continue to be the case in BM9. Also the reporting within the software is slow as well. It takes anywhere from 1-3 minutes to run any report. Also, the inability to create a version and it to show up in all plans. For example, if we want to create version of our 3+9 Forecast

Pros

The best part of this software are the drivers we use to manage our sales budget. We have several LLCs that are within this program. The ability to expand the way we create our budgets has given us greater insight into where we can save money. The elimination of finding "human error" input in an excel budget has alleviated so much time.

Cons

I have yet to find anything I don't like about this product.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Centage

Pros

Cloud-based and scalable as we built out the company organically and through M&A

Cons

Some of the drivers are a bit tricky to understand.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Centage

Pros

Planning Maestro has many effective tools that allows our department directors to effectively budget their own areas and pull everything together in one cohesive plan. For the most part, it's user friendly and support is always very responsive.

Cons

Reporting functionality of Planning Maestro can sometimes be challenging, as well as knowing which filters to select within revenue and driver applications.

Pros

Can break down budget lines into as sophisticated detail as desired.Support staff are responsive, professional and helpful.

Cons

Some features are site-wide rather than attached to a particular budget cycle. Updating these features can inadvertently affect other calculations.

Pros

Gets the job done and has changed how we handle our budget and how we look at budgeting. Little to no consultation with a robust budgeting, forecasting and integration with their analytics tool, Analytics Maestro, Budget Maestro.

Cons

Deoendi on company size workflow process is lacking. Some forecasting issues of budget and balance but creating and actual plan minimises the issue.

Pros

There are no pros except maybe the price point for this product.

Cons

The initial implementation process was rocky with several changes of support staff and the length of time from implementation to actual deployment took several months, with the deployment never being fully realized. The final product was bugged, with drivers not working properly and accounts set up incorrectly. Uploading date to the software was not seamless and required time to properly configure files; downloading data to Excel had similar difficulties.

Pros

I love the way this product is so easy to use and track all of my spending. I don't know what I would do without it!

Cons

Sometimes the report downloads are not very easy to analyze in Microsoft excel. There are times when I have to manually scrub the data to make it useable.

Pros

Easy to navigate and control access for end users. Quick updating of reports. Lots of options for slicing and dicing of data to meet organizational needs

Cons

Need to update each time new codes are added to our accounting system but this is not a material problem.

Pros

It's a very easy to use product that helps you to manage your expense. Software offers many rich features like Asset Management, Budgeting, Expense Tracking, Financial Reporting, etc.

Cons

We did not have any problem with the software to manage our expense and measure our performance.

Pros

Their support team is always available to help you through any questions or difficulties you encounter. The training provided is top notch and thorough and your trainer sets up your financial report formats for you to match your current statements. My trainer is still my primary contact person for help and all I have to do is send him an email. The software itself has enough built-in power and flexibility it can handle all kinds of retail, distribution, or manufacturing scenarios, like for my company it is the need to build up inventory before a selling season and to do this for many different products and different selling seasons. Budget Maestro is capable of generating fairly accurate balance sheets and cash flow statements, in addition to income statements, as it has sections within it devoted to the balance sheet side of forecasting. Combining Link Maestro and Analytics Maestro to Budget Maestro provides the only solution one needs to not only generate a budget or forecast but to then generate all the financial reports, statements, breakdown analysis needed by management. With Budget Maestro I can drive my revenues, expenses, and inventory levels by units, not revenue dollars, which is a lot more accurate for forecasting when dealing with a wide variation of products, product costs and retail prices.

Cons

Financial statements and reports utilizing proper accounting format rules can be very hard or impossible to attain by generating them within Budget Maestro. To attain the proper formatting that I am trained in and accustomed to providing to my management team I have to export the reports out to Excel and apply the spacing, headers, underlining, and so on inside Excel. However, now with their recent addition of Analytics Maestro, this issue is gone as Analytics Maestro is an Excel add-on so that you create and format all your needed standard and custom reports inside Excel and use Analytics Maestro to drop in the numbers and data you want in each report or statement.

Pros

In addition to providing robust budgeting, forecasting and integration with their analytics tool, Analytics Maestro, Budget Maestro is a true extension of a company's general ledger into future periods. This is accomplished through the unique software architecture, where every budget item, such as revenue, expense or personnel record creates an entry into a "behind the scenes" budget GL in the right GL accounts, in the correct amounts and the proper accounting period. What this means is, the financial statements you get in this application are always synchronized to the underlying budget. The balance sheet and statement of cash flows will accurately represent the forecasted financial position of the company to the extent of the accuracy of the budget itself.
The financial statements and all other reports can be easily generated by users without relying on IT.
The software can be directly integrated to popular ERP or accounting software GLs and the Analytics module which is integrated to Budget Maestro can also be integrated to other data sources such as CRM, inventory management, warehouse management, sales reporting data and others.
Another feature I like to use is creating multiple versions of the budgets or "what-if" scenarios, each automatically generating a unique set of financial statements and reports, exactly matching that particular version of the budget. You can see how your financial position changes in future periods as you change the budget version. This helps in finalizing a budget that is reasonable and also closely aligned to company goals and plans.

Cons

The workflow process in this application lacks in capabilities expected from larger solutions. This is probably not an issue in smaller organizations which to my understanding are the primary customer of this software.

Pros

ease of use is super important. reporting is good and I love the dump into Excel for more slicing and to import.

Cons

copy paste was removed from previous version - bring it back!

Pros

We needed a budgeting package that would be (1) easy to learn and use for our end-users, (2) able to automatically integrate with 3rd party general ledgers and (3) provide a powerful set of customizable analytics and reporting tools. Planning Maestro has successfully met all three requirements, and allowed us to provide more accurate budgets/forecasts/reporting with faster turn around.

Cons

A common issues I have with multiple software vendors: Enhancements and usability improvements can take a long time to roll out.

Pros

Simple to use, not very complicated. Has all the features needed for small companies and their budget needs.

Cons

Although simple to use, features are limited. They have a new web based version that should alleviate many of our limitations but we still have not had that rolled out. We were supposed to have the web based version last year but are still waiting for the roll out.
They also are used to smaller companies and over the last few years we have grown dramatically so we have basically out grown the product.

Pros

1. Very powerful forecasting tool that can handle both simple and complex aspects of forecasting. Handles multiple departments, entities, and the consolidation of them with ease.
2. Very easy to import actual data in order to perform variance analysis.
3. Easy to import almost all information necessary to set up a "plan" the first time.
4. What-if analysis allows you to look at the financial impact of making changes in your business without having to change your primary "plan"
5. All reports can be exported to Excel
6. Report layouts can be customized.
7. Very easy to create a 5 year forecast that allows increase/decrease assumptions to be customized in numerous ways, and using as many timeframes as desired.
8. Handles lines of credit and term loans, both fixed and variable rate, very easily.

Cons

1. Can't run a statement of cash flows based on "actual" data, only on "plan" data.
2. Not very easy to run a "plan" balance sheet for a future year as a stand-alone report, must either start the report on a month just after you have "actual" data or create an "actual/plan" version that houses a combination of data so it can be used for beginning balances.
3. If using Desktop version, additional modules need to be purchased to handle pre-paid insurance automatically and forecast inventory.

Pros

Ease of use and affordability. The ability to design your budget without having to pay someone to configure the software is priceless. We were also able to implement and complete our budget in less than 2 months.
This software allows us to budget continuously using the same data while just updating it for any changes. We budget annually, and re-forecast quarterly. This tool allows us to spend more time analyzing the impacts of the various variables and much less time actually creating the budgets to review. Once it is set up to forecasts into the future and all you have to do is edit for any changes. You can also perform endless 'what if' scenarios to see how potential changes would impact your forecasts.

Cons

Wow! I can't really think of any cons to this software. I am sure there are some limitations but for our company this fits the bill perfectly.

Pros

everyone can review this within the company, easy to update the budget and export the reports

Cons

there no no GL accounts which is very important for us

Pros

A windows based product that is easy to learn and use. Can quickly create multiple Versions within a Plan and What-if scenarios. Can quickly import actual data from our ERP system and take the actual, budget, and forecasted data into Excel for custom financial reporting and analysis.

Cons

The structure that is in place for customer support. We have been using BM for about 4 years. When we need support it's an urgent need, we need an answer promptly. The current structure of sending an email to get on the support staff's calendar for a call is too slow. Prefer to call, get in the cue, and get an answer immediately.

Pros

Centage provides strong customer service and the product has been terrific value for our organization.

Cons

Our group has not transitioned over to the new Cloud Based program with Centage as of yet, so we experience limitations on uploading a large amount of data for various dimensional reporting.

Pros

User friendly interface and reports
Good drill down to get to source documents

Cons

Not easily available on any computer in the office - would prefer a more office friendly product that could be easily transferred from one computer to the next.
No "out of the office" capability to use the software.
No access of information unless it was taken from the computer that was set up for Maestro.
Would prefer a web interface option

Pros

It is a good alternative to using excel spreadsheets. It's much easier to get reporting done when you have a number of departments and want to report as a total or individual departments. Uploading the information from our accounting software is easy to do. The vendor is helpful whenever we have problems. They can resolve most of our issues pretty quickly. We mostly use it for comparing P&Ls actual to budget and departmental reporting. In the past, we used Excel, like many companies, and found it was very easy to have errors. This is much more accurate. It allows us to break personnel, expenses, and revenue down several levels and also to roll it up.

Cons

We are still using an older version because there is one particular report that we like that has not been able to duplicated to our satisfaction on the newer version. The company has been through several refinements of the product but has still not been able to duplicate the report.