How to choose the best FP&A reporting tool

How do you decide what financial planning and analysis (FP&A) software is best for your business? This question is daunting. And the decision is more so because the answer is high stakes and the solution requires time, people and money.

Like all new project initiatives, the internal decision makers responsible for your FP&A software selection will know the important characteristics your people need in the tool. Top of the list is likely to be compatibility with your ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system and the ability to handle data in real-time – so when reports are pulled, the results are accurate.

Depending on the current circumstances of your business – you might have recently bought another company, changed your CFO or keen to reduce manual processes in spreadsheets – an independent planning and budgeting team of experts like BARC is a useful resource in guiding your initial decision-making.

The Planning Survey 26 is the largest and most thorough fact-based analysis of the planning and budgeting software market currently available. Based on the real-world experiences of 804 planning users , most of its value lies in the analysis of such a large and broad group of professionals globally. These business leaders use FP&A software regularly and share their experiences in the survey. We think the information available is powerful for your own software business decisions.

The survey "reveals the strengths and challenges of many of the leading vendors in the space as well as smaller vendors, some regional and some relatively new to the market, many of which offer outstanding value to the market. ” says BARC.

As finance teams need strong reporting capability embedded in their financial software, let us run you through how you might reference BARC to find a good match for a brief such as – What vendor has the best FP&A reporting?

Reporting and analysis is a top requirement when comparing budgeting, planning and forecasting tools

Firstly, reporting and analysis is a common request as standard reporting and ad hoc query reporting are key requirements that business leaders look for in their budgeting, planning and forecasting software today. According to one Phocas customer surveyed in The Planning Survey, they said "reporting and analytics have been a game changer for us."

To examine correlations between what the most successful software providers do differently to the less successful ones, BARC classifies companies from leaders to laggards. Leaders comprise the top 10 percent based on their achievement of business benefits while the lowest 10 percent are the laggards.

“There are many reasons why FP&A professionals adopt planning, BI and analytics software and many ways these solutions are put to work,” reports BARC.

Various business benefit KPIs in the planning software are evaluated by the survey participants.  BARC then uses a scoring system to derive a composite weighted score for each business benefit, based on the level of benefits achieved by each software vendor.

In the Planning Survey 26, Phocas featured in three categories (or peer groups) where reporting and analysis was ranked. These categories are:

• Products for planning, budgeting and forecasting 
• Integrated products for planning BI and analytics 
• Mid-size/departmental implementations  

It's important to note the BARC survey reviews the combination of products that vendors offer in the planning category so in the Phocas example, the customers reviewed the Business Intelligence or Analytics product as well as Budgets and Forecasts and Financial Statements. Phocas describes the tools collectively as a Business Intelligence plus Financial Planning and Analysis (BI and FP&A) platform.

Phocas is pleased that its customers working in finance and FP&A teams ranked the reporting and analysis functionality as a leader across the three BARC categories.

BI + FP&A work together for improved budgeting and forecasting process

To help the reader grasp how the Phocas BI and FPA platform works it's beneficial for people to understand how the BI foundation, which does all the data consolidation, validation and automation from your ERP and other business units' datasources provides all the reliable data for the Budgets and Forecasts and Financial Statements products. For example, if financial data changes in your ERP, then the Financial Statements you have set-up will also update automatically. If you want to do a deep dive into the profit margins of certain products or business performance of specific branches you will be able to access the structured data underpinning the Financial Statements.

Even though you will do most of the planning and collaboration in Phocas Budgets & Forecasts, the Financial Statements product plays a key role in reporting on your financial performance and financial health. In the Financial Statements software, you can customize financial reports such as Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow for each branch, create consolidated reports as well as automate any number of management reports. Then, you can visualize aspects of these reports in dashboards and investigate anomalies or metrics.

Best FP&A software for ease of use

Let's compare the top six products in Ease of Use for Planning Budgeting and Forecasting and hear from users of each product or a BARC review .

1) Phocas: 8.6/10 for ease of use

"Drives self‑sufficiency in the business. Data is with the people who make decisions. Easy access to data."
Member of a cross-departmental BI team, Retail, 100 - 2,500 employees

2) Vena: 8.3/10 for ease of use

3) Planful: 8.3/10 for ease of use

Planful is recognized in the BARC survey for a user-friendly, no-code interface that enables self-service for finance teams. Users highlighted the platform's ease of learning and navigation across both front and back ends.

4) Prophix: 8.2/10 for ease of use

"It's logical and easy to navigate and use."
CIO, Construction, 100 - 2,500 employees

5) SAP Analytics Cloud : 8/10  for ease of use

In addition to using SAP Analytics Cloud with its own data models in the cloud, it can also be used as a front end for other SAP data sources. However, only a limited set of functions is available so not all smart functions.

Choosing the right FP&A reporting tool is important

When you start your software research try and pinpoint what is important to your people and your business and align on your ideal Financial Planning and Analytics tool. We often find finance leaders are looking for software to help them consolidate budgeting with area managers across entities or save time and customize reports. Phocas FP&A and BI does all of this and streamlines FP&A processes. The platform makes working with business partners on strategic planning much clearer as the software helps build a bridge between operational planning and financial planning.

Good luck with your search and FP&A software discovery. For access to the BARC Planning Survey click below.