Phocas delivers trusted results with integrated business planning in BARC survey

When the results of the largest, global BARC The Planning Survey 2026 came in, the numbers that stood out most were outcomes. 100% of surveyed Phocas users achieved a better quality of planning results. 100% reported product satisfaction and 91% said they would definitely or probably recommend Phocas to another organization.

Taken together, these figures tell a business outcomes story. Phocas is an integrated business planning software that delivers on the reason finance teams in distribution companies buy it. These finance teams want connected plans, more regular forecasts and confidence in the numbers so everyone can use it.

What integrated business planning means for mid-market businesses

Integrated business planning (IBP) is a term that's been claimed by enterprise software vendors for years, often as a rebranding of sales and operations planning processes, or as a way to describe planning platforms that require months of implementation and significant technical resource to configure. For many mid-market businesses, IBP has felt like a category designed for someone else.

Phocas has changed this and custom-built integrated business planning tools for mid-market distributors. BARC The Planning Survey 26 evaluated Phocas in the integrated products peer group. This means products that combine planning, BI and analytics in a single platform. That peer group reflects exactly what mid-market finance and operations teams need; one platform where financial planning, demand planning, operational planning and performance management work from the same connected data.

This is Phocas Analytics and Phocas Budgets & Forecasts sharing the same data foundation so the dashboards finance teams use for management reporting are drawing on the same numbers that reflect budget results in branches. There is no manual reconciliation between what the ERP says and what the plan assumes. That's the end-to-end visibility that makes planning results trustworthy, and it's what 100% of surveyed users confirmed they achieved.

‘Better quality planning results’ is what Phocas strives for

A 100% rate on better quality planning results is a striking figure and it's worth understanding what drives it. Planning quality improves when the planning process itself becomes connected, collaborative and uses consolidated data.

Phocas supports that shift in several concrete ways. Budget templates are built and can be customized by business users which means the model reflects how the business operates. Forecasts are created from budget models with a configurable mix of actual and forecast periods, giving finance teams genuine flexibility in how they approach rolling forecasts and scenario planning. When business conditions shift, the model can be adapted.

Cross-functional collaboration is built into the workflow. Users can assign tasks and view progress on individual planning steps, with commenting functionality that allows context to be added at the cell level. That matters enormously in planning, budgeting and forecasting processes that cross departmental lines. Finance team want to see the sales managers revenue so they can consolidate them into a coherent financial forecast without losing the thread of who assumed what and why.

The result is forecast accuracy that comes from a genuinely collaborative, data-integrated process and is updated or checked every time the books are closed each month. That's what better quality planning results mean and it's what the BARC data is capturing.

Product satisfaction and 91% recommendation rate

The 100% product satisfaction figure sits alongside the 91% recommendation rate as a result worth examining carefully. In B2B software, recommendation intent is one of the most reliable proxies for genuine value delivery. People recommend tools that made their working lives better.

For Phocas, that satisfaction connects directly to the integrated platform story. When strategic planning, financial forecasting, operational planning and reporting all run through a single connected platform, the day-to-day experience of finance and operations teams is materially better. The month-end close is faster. Budget cycles involve the right people and there is better buy-in of the numbers.

Why the BARC peer group placement matters

Phocas was evaluated in BARC The Planning Survey 26 in the integrated products for planning, BI and analytics peer group and the planning, budgeting and forecasting category. That placement reflects the breadth of what Phocas delivers. Beyond planning and performance management, the platform integrates comprehensive reporting, dashboarding, ad hoc query and analysis capabilities, expanding its scope beyond pure planning functionality.

That's significant for businesses evaluating IBP software, because the planning capability and the analytics capability are the same product. The KPIs finance teams track in Phocas Analytics are informed by the same data that feeds Phocas Budgets & Forecasts which means performance management and financial planning are connected.

For mid-market distributors where operational excellence depends on having accurate, real-time visibility across sales, inventory management, procurement and finance this provide up-to-date data between planning that informs decisions daily.

Trusted outcomes in the planning software

BARC The Planning Survey 26 evaluates FP&A software across dozens of key performance indicators based on responses from actual customers. People using Phocas are satisfied with the product and they're achieving better outcomes because of it. 100% better quality planning results. 100% product satisfaction. 91% recommendation intent.

Those numbers matter because FP&A software is ultimately bought for outcomes. Demand forecasts, customized financial statements for branches or scenario planning, all these capabilities only have value if the business can trust the outputs they produce. And trust in planning outputs comes from clean, connected data; a collaborative process and a platform that's built to match how the business works.

For mid-market businesses evaluating integrated business planning software, Phocas offers a platform that delivers on its outcomes promise which the BARC survey now validates independently.