About Planful

Planful is the pioneer of end-to-end financial close, consolidation, and financial planning & analysis (FP&A) cloud software. The Planful platform is used by the Office of the CFO around the globe to streamline business-wide planning, budgeting, consolidations, reporting, and visual analytics. More than 1,000 customers, including Boston Red Sox, Del Monte, TGI Friday’s, and 23andMe, rely on Planful to accelerate cycle times, increase productivity, and improve accuracy across the end-to-end FP&A process. Planful is a private company backed by Vector Capital, a leading global private equity firm.
Planful Software - Planful reporting dashboard
Planful Software - Planful SaaS metrics
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Planful pricing

Planful does not have a free version and does not offer a free trial.

Starting Price:
Not provided by vendor
Free Version:
No
Free trial:
No

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Planful Reviews

Overall rating

4.3
Write a Review!

Feature rating

Value for Money
4.2
Functionality
4.2
Ease of Use
4.2
Customer Support
4.3
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All Planful Reviews

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51 reviews
Lauren
Lauren
  • Industry: Building Materials
  • Company size: 1,001–5,000 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
4
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
3

4.0
Reviewed on 14/10/2017

It's a life saver for reporting

Pros

Ease of reporting and planning. The reports are fast to make and can very easily be taught to other users. Also since it is in the cloud, there are many tiers of security features for customization.

Cons

New features and cross browser supporting don't function the best. The new row sets are difficult to get to the exact detail and adjusting cold width can't be done in a cluster in chrome.

Marjo
  • Industry: Media Production
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
4
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
4

5.0
Reviewed on 17/12/2024

A Must Have and Reliable Business Accounting Solution

Pros

I like the great accounting features and capabilities.
Handles business accounting like a pro and allows multiple integrations.

Cons

Planful has met most of our needs seamlessly. No dislikes.

Joseph
  • Industry: Computer Games
  • Company size: 201–500 Employees
  • Used Weekly for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
1
Features
1
Ease of Use
1
Customer Support
2

1.0
Reviewed on 13/03/2024

Unfortunately Planful never worked let alone met the expectations from the sales pitch

Pros

- That the licence was only three years long

Cons

- The planning feature was almost impossible to use
- Any new features were always only available at a price never as part of what we already were paying for
- The integrators were oversold and never worked despite being paid for
- The consolidation functionality roll over made January month end more painful than our annual audit process, and take almost as long

Alternatives Considered

CCH Tagetik

Reasons for Switching to Planful

Pricing, and the support offered from the onboarding team, as well as out of the box integrations.
Alisha
  • Industry: Insurance
  • Company size: 10,000+ Employees
  • Used Weekly for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
4
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
5

4.0
Reviewed on 15/12/2024

Planful review - would recommend.

This is a powerful financial reporting tool which we use to forecast and budget within the team. We have used this for a couple of years and will continue using.

Pros

The interface works well across the team and everyone got to grips with it very shortly upon implementation.

Cons

You can’t input all data into the system quickly; it takes some time to do it manually.

Dominic
  • Industry: Medical Devices
  • Company size: 201–500 Employees
  • Used Daily for 6-12 months
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
4
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

4.0
Reviewed on 5/07/2023

Planful Review

It has been good. Our [sensitive content hidden] of FP&A likes the tools. The FP&A [sensitive content hidden] prefers Adaptive Insights.

Pros

The ability to use third-party software to integrate other systems. The Reporting in the browser is clean.

Cons

Saving HC to finance and HR cubes requires many additional steps. I used Adaptive Insights, and saving to the database was much more efficient. Also, the model for our vendor spend is in Spotlight. That has led to incorrectly saving data to other scenarios.

Verified Reviewer
  • Industry: Information Technology & Services
  • Company size: 10,000+ Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
3
Features
4
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
4

4.0
Reviewed on 24/09/2021

Great FP&A Product

We've reduced the use of excel spreadsheets for budgeting/forecasting by using this tool. It's simplified our budget and forecasting process and it keeps getting easier each year.

Pros

They listen to their customers and are always making improvements to the product. It's easy to use and they have so many resources (support chat, community, training, etc).

Cons

The support was not great when we first implemented the tool. They've come a long way and are truly supportive of all questions I have.

Amanda
  • Industry: Nonprofit Organisation Management
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Weekly for 1-5 months
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
4
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

5.0
Reviewed on 1/11/2022

Best Budgeting tool

Pros

The software is easy to use. I have the ability to lock down budgets so they cannot be changed. Bring in real time data from our ERP and do financial reporting. I have saved more than 100 hours on the annual budgeting process. It is excel based and it makes it easy for non-financial users to use and understand. Can segment who gets to see what. Have workforce planning capabilities

Cons

None so far. I have only been using it for a short time.

Alternatives Considered

Jirav and Prophix

Reasons for Switching to Planful

The fact that it was robust and excel based, while not truly being excel was amazing.
Purva
  • Industry: Accounting
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Weekly for 6-12 months
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
5
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

5.0
Reviewed on 21/01/2025

Planful is a must have

I enjoy planful it’s made me more accountable and productive in my daily life.

Pros

I like how easy and accessible the app is. It’s easy to use and helps me plan well.

Cons

I have nothing to write that’s bad about planful. It’s helped me become so much more productive

Phil
  • Industry: Accounting
  • Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
  • Used Weekly for 1+ year
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
5
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

5.0
Reviewed on 9/05/2024

Good FP&A software

Pros

Ease of use and ability to quickly customize reports

Cons

Some budget templates required some backend work to adhere to our needs

Jade Anthony
  • Industry: Consumer Goods
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for Free Trial
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
5
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

4.0
Reviewed on 6/01/2025

Planful helpful

Pros

The interface is pretty futuristic and user friendly. Also uses Ai for convenience.

Cons

Pricing is not disclosed on their website.

Jessica
  • Industry: Higher Education
  • Company size: 1,001–5,000 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
0
Features
5
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

5.0
Reviewed on 27/09/2021

Planful: Modern FP&A Solution

My overall experience with Planful has been overwhelmingly positive. Their team is frequently engaged to ensure that we're utilizing the solution to our maximum benefit. Planful's help desk team knowledgeable and very quick and responsive addressing issues as quickly as possible.

Pros

Administering the system is very smooth and adaptable. Our prior system would take 110% of my time to keep it running and troubleshooting issues. With Planful, now that we're live and stable on the platform, it takes < 50% of my time, so I'm able to focus on other value-add activities: process improvement and automation, personal skill development and growth, and future product enhancements.

Reporting is extremely user friendly both within platform and Spotlight, so users have been able to create and admin their own reports .

Cons

Loading actual wage data by employee is seems more complicated than it needs to be. Prepping the file to load this data takes ~1 hour/month when all other data load rules take < 5 minutes. We also had issues in the past with Workforce data input/locking between users, but it's been much easier for our team to use with the extensive Workforce UI redesign in 2020.

Verified Reviewer
  • Industry: Food & Beverages
  • Company size: 1,001–5,000 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
4
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

5.0
Reviewed on 10/12/2021

Planful Overview Review

Great experience, very friendly staff, and everyone wants you to succeed. The software does not require extensive coding knowledge and can be picked up pretty seamlessly with the proper training if you have a background in Excel.

Pros

Very user friendly & similar syntax to excel

Cons

I feel the training is basic and outdated at this point. Considering all the time and effort they have put into developing the product, they should spend more time having live sessions showing individuals how to use the product better. This would also enable customers to find out about some of the great features they created.

Angel
  • Industry: Construction
  • Company size: 10,000+ Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
5
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

4.0
Reviewed on 27/09/2021

Solid tool that will help you manage your budget with ease!

It was rocky at first, but has been absolutely fantastic in the past 2 years. We have gone from being 10-13% under budget to about 1/2% under budget last year, and it's truly because this tool allows all of our managers to view everything with ease.

Pros

All the features we needed in one tool: Workforce planning, budgeting, forecasting, financial reporting and easy creation of management reporting.

Cons

There are several enhancements that I intend to discuss with our customer success manager BUT I have no doubt, with the release schedule Planful is on, these items will be easy to incorporate into our environment. If I had to choose one that that I least like about the software, it's simply that I would suggest that your implementation partners completely understand your structure and what any reports you need to gain/create in the software. Years ago when we implemented (which I'm sure it has improved since then) there were features and items that weren't even discussed that we discovered later.

Janet
  • Industry: Oil & Energy
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
5
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
5

5.0
Reviewed on 6/10/2017

We had a quick implementation, and find that the environment is very flexible. All end users...

Monthly operational reporting time reduced from 3 days to 3 hours. We built alternative hierarchies for our chart of accounts and entities, so that operations can see their relevant data in the format they prefer, whereas accounting can see it based on GAAP. Modeling transformed our budget process from Excel spreadsheets to a cloud-based solution accessible to all end users, so budget creation migrated from FP&A to the process owners. Budget consolidation process was reduced from 2 days to 2 minutes. We have also transformed to a rolling forecast using modeling, so that the annual budgets required by lenders comes from the forecasts, and is no longer a time-consuming annual task.

We have also since identified other uses for modeling, including complex calculations for our formula pricing that is based on external data imported into tables. We are also importing non-financial data to enhance our asset management deferred maintenance program.

Pros

There are no limits to the types and volume of data that you interface within Host Analytics, as long as you maintain a common field. Implementation went well (with a consulting partner), and it enabled our budget manager to trim his reporting time from 3 days to 3 hours. The modeling module uses an Excel add-in, so the feel and use of Excel is still available, but the results are stored centralized, so when any end user retrieves data, there is one version of the truth. Customer service is second to none. In my 30+ years in planning and analysis, I have never found a team so dedicated to ensuring their customer's success. Feature updates are either monthly or quarterly, and are focused on what the customers have expressed are their needs or wishes.

Cons

It required that we use a partner consultant to implement. This may be due mostly to the fact that as a small company, we do not have the internal IT resources; the initial implementation without a partner stalled due to resource and communication issues.

Shivam
  • Industry: Information Technology & Services
  • Company size: 10,000+ Employees
  • Used Weekly for 6-12 months
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
5
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
5

5.0
Reviewed on 27/09/2021

A great all round FP&A solution that is competitively priced

I honestly think it's great, particular for users whose current ERP systems are lacking in the core FP&A functionalities Planful provides. Its attractive pricing and feature rich functionality and great support make it a solid offering to prospective users.

Pros

We used Planful's Reporting and Consolidation functionality, and are current in the process of setting up Dynamic Reporting/Spotlight for the purposes of revamping an internal budgeting and forecasting process. In my opinion the best thing about the system is that once you perform the initial set up and get the hierarchies and data loads correct, it is super easy to use with minimal training required, whilst also being massively powerful and flexible. It is also very competitively priced, and the support staff and implementation consultants are excellent.

Cons

The biggest and most obvious drawback of the solution is the training materials that accompany it. Because it is a relatively new platform, there is not currently a huge amount of training resources and materials out there with which end users can learn the platform. This means there is a greater dependency on the materials Planful provide, and in my own personal opinion, the training courses do not do a great job in bringing a Planful user up to speed. Thankfully, it seems Planful is investing and promoting in a new Engage forum which will no doubt help new users of the system.

Matthew
  • Industry: Hospital & Health Care
  • Company size: 1,001–5,000 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
4
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
5

4.0
Reviewed on 29/09/2021

Solid Choice

Pros

I like that most of this software is tight and reasonable in size. On the surface anything can be intimidating to a new user but we have a small team that has been able to manage this across many hospitals and types of users. We have put in a lot of work but without much IT support which makes this valuable.

Cons

Processes and building infrastructure around raw data can be tricky. We do not have a data warehouse which makes things difficult with connecting data. For me this software is a mid tier product in some ways so it seemed logical that they would realize companies may not have solid infrastructure to support fast and elaborate functions provided. In a perfect world the system could be more of a one stop shop or help get us there.

Chris
  • Industry: Insurance
  • Company size: 1,001–5,000 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
4
Ease of Use
3
Customer Support
5

4.0
Reviewed on 28/02/2022

Robust financial reporting software.

Planful is smooth, powerful and reliable. Also gets noticeably better every few months. If you need them, support is hard working, responsive, and thorough.

Pros

Workforce Planning is my favorite feature. Data loads and updates are fast and there are lots of options for modeling and allocating compensation items. Training our budget preparers is easy, and they get most of it right and don't complain often which is more than can be said than my past experiences with other budget processes. Reporting is also very good with many options for creating data within Planful or externally. Also, the site rarely goes down. Maybe one short interruption in two years?

Cons

Training documentation should be expanded, richer in some areas for a more user friendly admin experience.

Lana
  • Industry: Management Consulting
  • Company size: 5,001–10,000 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
5
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

5.0
Reviewed on 8/10/2021

Training review

Great, easy to set up and use, flexible enough

Pros

Planful is very user friendly and it is easy to become a self-sufficient user of this application as a lot of help resources availiable for use. Searcg engine within Planful is very good as well as it makes it easy to navigate application.

Cons

I dont like that to complete certificaiton, all users have to attend real life class. Those classes are not convinient for UK users and they dont usually add much more informaiton that cannot be found in written guides.

Victoria
  • Industry: Insurance
  • Company size: 1,001–5,000 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
4
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
1

4.0
Reviewed on 24/09/2021

Review of Planful

Pros

We use this software for our month-end close process to consolidate financials and publish our monthly financial package to management and other various internal/external partners. The software is easy to navigate and helps us quickly consolidate financial data for all of our entities each month.

Cons

There aren't any specific features that I dislike about the software at the moment, however the Planful support portal/team hasn't always been the most helpful when it comes to troubleshooting issues in a timely manner.

Verified Reviewer
  • Industry: Accounting
  • Company size: 1,001–5,000 Employees
  • Used Daily for 6-12 months
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
5
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
4

4.0
Reviewed on 5/01/2019

High Quality Financial Reporting Platform

Used this software to simplify reporting from 8 companies with varying charts of accounts and 10,000 accounts to a single, comparable reporting structure. Greatly reduced effort and time spent on consolidating and preparing financial reports.

Pros

Dynamic reports and the ability to get the precise financial information you need, with drill down capabilities is a huge plus. Can include links to images of transaction source documents, providing great transparency in reporting. Spotlight for Excel add in to develop custom, refreshable reports is a great help. Forecasting and budgeting tools are good as well.

Cons

Learning curve of implementing a new software for financial reporting is always going to be somewhat significant, but there are several quirks in data loads and reporting cube processing that make things harder than they should be.

Verified Reviewer
  • Industry: Insurance
  • Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
4
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
4

4.0
Reviewed on 21/06/2018

2+ Year User of Host Analytics EPM Platform

Pros

The ability to quickly consolidate all of our agency financials at month end and close the books in a timely manner.

Cons

I enjoy most things about this software, however I would have to say that I wish the Spotlight Excel add-in that Host offers would be directly connected to the Core Application, eliminating the need to maintain and update a separate model in excel so that they data comes through the Spotlight Excel reports accurately.

Verified Reviewer
  • Industry: Internet
  • Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
4
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
3

4.0
Reviewed on 2/02/2018

Host has helped us scale from ~200 employees to over 1k!

Pros

- Similar to Oracle Hyperion, but in the cloud
- Lower overhead than on premise tools
- Robust platform with more advanced feature set then other cloud tools
- Solid excel integration
- Product team responds to feedback
- Fair pricing
- No limit on size of model

Cons

- Attractiveness of user interface
- Template speed
- Visualizations
- Speed of new development
- Implementation took longer than expected

Jean
  • Industry: Sporting Goods
  • Company size: 5,001–10,000 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
4
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
4

4.0
Reviewed on 23/11/2021

Planful great value for the money

Postive experience, good customer support after implementation

Pros

Ease of reporting, creating and distributing and ability to schedule distribution even to non users

Cons

consolidation module could be improved, tracking reconciliations etc

Verified Reviewer
  • Industry: Internet
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source
Value for Money
0
Features
4
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
4

5.0
Reviewed on 29/12/2022

helpful tool for data management

I had a very good experience with planful I will recommend it

Pros

what i like about planful is that the data is transmitted in real time.the application is easy to handle.reliable and accurate details and it has very good features.

Cons

planful works very well for me and I haven't found any complication with this application yet

priyanka
priyanka
  • Industry: Computer Software
  • Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
5
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

5.0
Reviewed on 6/02/2018

HA is really an efficient tool which made our FP&A activities automated to certain exten

Automation , easy to use

Pros

Reusable formats in Reports makes Reporting easier and customer support responds usually in hours and makes our job more easy.

Cons

I think they should have more tutorials on their Training website.

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