Awesome product for a great value. Takes budgeting and forecasting to a new level.

There are several benefits from using this software. The biggest benefit is that once your initial model is built you get stability compared to doing your forecast in spreadsheets. When we used spreadsheets most of our time was spent making sure formulas were correct and that there were no bust in the model. With Adaptive, you have confidence that once you test your formulas you can add/takeaway/and modify data and your calculations will work. The other benefit is that if you have a champion and insist that new data be loaded as soon as possible you always have a good/latest view of what the company expects. By doing this forecasting becomes built into your processes and not the annual/quarterly drag that the organization dislikes. Information is kept in a nice concise format that is easy to read.

Pros

The product if very adaptable. We recently went through a sell process where we were sold by a public company to a private equity firm and back to a public company within a two and half year period. Adaptive was very key to providing the analysis and financial information required for the sell process. While with the private equity firm we changed to a fiscal year but they required us to report both fiscal and calendar year numbers. We also had to push the various EBITDA adjustments back into the financial statements for comparative purposes. I also like the customer service and the fact that Adaptive pushes out a couple of major releases each year to add new functionality requested by the user community.

Adaptive Insights impresses even more than expected

Pros

Our employees were used to working with Excel spreadsheets. We considered such an approach not completely effective, so our choice turned next to Adaptive Insights. There are no restrictions on the size of the documents. This program is synchronized with other applications, including such important for us solutions like SAP and Oracle. We like the high accuracy of the reports we can create on the tool’s base. It is also important that all data are in one place and don’t require much effort for their processing and analysis. Adaptive Insights is a multifunctional tool with a robust and well-thought-out suite of features. This application allows our employees to track finances, budgets, sales, resources, and labor contribution. With its help, our company’s managers are also able to collect divergent data, make various kinds of reports, build models, and make optimal business decisions.

Cons

It would be better if Adaptive Insights had an opportunity to filter for specific months while working with spreadsheets. This lack of functionality makes our work a bit confusing sometimes. We wouldn’t mind adding more advanced features to the planning tools as well. We believe it would behoove this product if it had several tutorial videos on how to use it to the full extent. Even though we find this tool user-friendly, it doesn’t mean at all that it is so for every company.

Best financial tool on the market in my opinion

I use Adaptive as a replacement for excel in some aspects of my job. I mainly use it as month end communication to send out financial status reports pertaining to actuals vs budget vs forecast. Adaptive Discovery is one tool I utilize to aid in visualizing data in multiple ways through the use of graphs, gauges, pie charts, tables, and many more.

Pros

Allows so many different ways to breakdown data.
Great customer support. The respond quickly and are very knowledgeable.
Easy to manage users with different access levels.
Adaptive is always working to enhance or update features. The platform develops continuously, which is great for the large user base.
Hosts free webinars every so often.
Can be accessed from anywhere as long as you have internet access.

Cons

The learning curve is steep, it takes a lot of time to really get comfortable with the platform.
Not a lot of video tutorials.
The terminology can be confusing sometimes.
Adaptive is open to technical/programming suggestions but often take time to be enacted. You sometimes have to wait for the next release to get the issue resolved.

Adaptive has created a tool that is easy to use and provides value almost instantly.

Pros

I love the ease of creating a budget and the ability to quickly create a new forecast. Adaptive has created a formula wizard that is similar to excel, which makes it easy for excel based planners to easily adapt. Adaptive also has an excel interface for reporting, OfficeConnect which makes reporting even easier. They have also created an upload feature to easily maintain your hierarchy, dimensions and attributes. For a company as large as ours it makes the maintenance of the system easier.

Since Adaptive is Cloud based there is no sharing excel files. I can work with anyone in my organization from anywhere and we are all able to access the same file. Since everything is housed in Adaptive we are able to collaborate easier and make better decisions.

Cons

There is always room for improvement and Adaptive is always listening to its customers. There are some features that make reporting a little clunky, rollups. They recently updated the reporting tool within Adaptive, but it doesn't seem as user friendly as the older version. Hopefully over time it will be easier to use.

Flexible and Comprehensive Planning and Reporting

I've been using Adaptive Planning for 4 years and at 2 employers. The software has not only improved the accuracy and accountability of our budgeting, forecasting and reporting, but has saved thousands of hours of time.

Pros

The software is flexible. It can be developed and managed internally or you can work with external experts if needed. I like that the cloud software is continuously improving and developing to meet the needs of its customers. There are new releases every six months that improve its functionality based on customer needs and requests. And more importantly, all updates are done on the cloud so that there is no need for the IT department to get involved.

Cons

There aren't many things specific to the software that I don't like. I would say that the most difficult part about using this software is managing the requests from management so that it doesn't compromise the value of the software.

Amazing planning software for non-profits!

Implementing Adaptive Insights has made me feel like a kid on Christmas morning. Every new feature or discovered capability is a wonderful gift giving me my time and sanity back. I am the only FP&A for a mid-size company. We had outgrown Excel but had a hard time finding a planning software that could handle the allocations fundamental to non-profit accounting. We found Adaptive Insights and haven't looked back. The sales team is amazing, They are not only no pressure, but extremely helpful. We wanted to make sure our entire management team would be on board with new software. AI sales came out and did a personal demonstration for us and answered all of their questions. They also introduced us to great implementation consultants to help us set the instance up.We just finished our first year of planning in Adaptive and it was easy and user-friendly. I love Adaptive and will use it throughout my career.

Pros

The user-friendly interface, customization, regular updates and wealth of support and information. Reporting is also easy to use and very powerful. One of our main challenges is accurately planning and reporting our allocations. AI makes it easy.

Cons

There is nothing I dislike about this software but there are a few things to be aware of. Unless you have 2 people exclusively working full time to set up the instance it will take you much longer than you think. Allow yourself a few months to set it up and know that a full, complete roll-out will probably take a full budget cycle.

Consistency and savings through use of Adaptive Planning

When I started in my role as Manager of FP&A with an agricultural inputs company, one of my first tasks was to move our planning and forecasting processes away from Excel workbooks. Trying to manage P&L's for 200+ retail locations and departments, combined with nearly 2,000 employees, during a high-growth period proved to be challenging, to say the least. Adaptive Planning has streamlined our planning and forecasting cycles and helped us to standardize metrics, reporting and analysis. Through the use of multiple versions, we have the ability to compare plans, forecasts and actuals across the organization. My only regret related to Adaptive Planning was the timing of our implementation. We started our implementation in late-July and finished in October, which coincided with our annual planning cycle. We survived, but I would not recommend this timeline! Pros: 1) Implementation was relatively quick (even though we implemented during our annual planning cycle). 2) Affordability compared to other SAAS and on-site alternatives. 3) Flexibility allows us to mold portions of the product to our needs. 4) Customer support is excellent and timely. 5) Tool can be maintained by Finance; IT involvement is not required for installation or maintenance. 6) Ongoing product enhancements continue to improve this product. 7) Office Connect allows for creation of templates in Excel, Word and PowerPoint. Updating with current results is a simple refresh button-click. 8) Attributes and dimensions allow for unlimited slicing/dicing of organizational data. Cons: 1) Only a single organization structure is currently available in a single-instance installation. This has caused some headaches, especially in the window of year-end close and progressing into a different organization structure in the new year. We have worked around this issue by utilizing level attributes to view our data in multiple structures. 2) The reporting side of the tool could be improved, including automating linkage to standard distribution/reporting platforms. For example, we use SharePoint for distribution of standard reports, but publishing reports from Adaptive to SharePoint is currently a manual process.

Adaptive Planning Review

Overall we have been pleased with Adaptive Planning. We originally transitioned to Adaptive from excel based reporting due to increasing data allocation requirements. After several months of implementation we were able to start populating our weekly financial reports entirely from data exported from Adaptive. The end result has been a significant decrease in reporting time, even though we now splice our data by more dimensions than we have looked at in the past. This would not have been possible in excel, and we now have more time to analyze our information instead of being stuck in the reporting cycle.

Pros

The best part of the software for me is the ability to quickly create reports based on any selected dimensions, levels, and timeframes. This is something that historically would have taken us a significant amount of time and is now done in minutes.

Cons

My least favorite parts about the software are the difficulty in navigating the data sheets and the inability to lock formulas and values in historical versions while updating formulas going forward. I would love to see greater functionality to search in data sheets by specific columns.

Great software to project us into the next level of strategic finance.

Overall, Adaptive Insights has been a great software to work with. AI has increased the FP&A departments productivity during month end close and review by multiple days.

Pros

- The software is a cloud based, so you will have access anywhere you have the internet.
- No more “this worksheet is locked by another user” message.
- Imports and Exports to/from excel seamlessly…for those of you that like to work out of excel.
- Dashboard capabilities for more real time department metrics and visibility to spend.
- Rolling forecasting capabilities that allow us as a company to focus more on the future and less on the past.
- Instant Company budget/forecast results.
- Audit trails…never have to worry who, what, or when someone changed a number you budgeted or forecasted. All changes will be tracked.
- Company-wide visibility to Personnel and Capex planning that drives the cost of benefits, IT equipment, and supplies.

Cons

- Software enhancements are only every 4 to 5 months.
- Levels (Organization Departments) can be restricting to planning across multiple departments
- Noting variances in a report can be tricky at times.

Great Product

We are going into our third budget cycle using Adaptive and it has made our process much more efficient. Prior to using Adaptive we played budget ping pong, bouncing spreadsheets back and forth and then once we landed on a final version the Finance team consolidated the numbers. Adaptive is great because you can see the impact of a change to the consolidated budget in real time. This is a great software for the Finance team as well as the budget / business managers.

Pros

There are many great features including: audit trails, notes, role permissions and security, the ability to quickly create versions, great technical support, and it’s cloud based.

Cons

There is a report builder in Adaptive and it’s easy to use. However, I do feel like they have focused on making improvements in other areas and the reporting hasn’t made as much progress. I do think this is one area that could use some improvements.

Powerful software, makes life easier, business insights more accessible

I have previous experience using Hyperion, Peoplesoft, and Microsoft Excel to create and maintain financial models. As flexible as regular spreadsheets are, it was always hard to get everybody on the same page, referencing the same numbers, using the same version. I have been using Adaptive Planning for about 1.5 years now, with about 1 year as a systems administrator for the product. FP&A has truly become simplified. This tool has saved hours upon hours every month, as well improved accuracy and timeliness of reports. This allows us to function better as a business unit, and make more proactive models and decisions. My one gripe with Adaptive is their customer support. I have had a hard time getting several issues resolved in a timely manner. Nonetheless, I would highly recommend Adaptive to anybody stuck in "spreadsheet land"--there really is a better way.

Pros

One source for all models and reported numbers. Interconnected data makes it easy to see the full effect of any changes, large or small.

Cons

Customer support needs to work on responsiveness.

Outstanding Planning and Reporting Platform

We plan at a very granular level, and Adaptive's formulas and overall approach to modeling has made this tool a pleasure to work with. Like any new tool, it took our team a little bit of time (~3 months) of getting used to it, but this is simply a tool we can't live without now. In addition to the feature set, the customer support is outstanding. Very responsive to questions and highly knowledgeable on a variety of topics.

Pros

Feature set is very strong.
Customer support is among the best in the industry. Highly responsive to detailed technical questions.

Cons

Like any new platform, it took our team a few months after go-live to really utilize the power of the tool, but now it simply a resource that we can't live without.

The software will change you life...Seriously!

Pros

This suite of products have changed the way we inform our leadership of the state of our operations each month. We no longer spend days and days preparing dry financials. Now, we are generating useful statements in seconds along with instantaneously seeing that same financial and operational data visualized in Adaptive Discovery in our interactive scorecard. The ease of use, and the level of support are the two greatest things about Adaptive.

Cons

The tools do everything we ask of them, and more. The monthly load of data from our GL and the operational data from other source systems being a manual process is my ultimate least favorite thing. We are implementing the Adaptive Discovery connector so that the data will be loaded in the future at the push of a button. That should take care of it, though. I think if I had to identify my next least favorite thing it's probably the high bar that it sets for all of our other reporting from other systems.

Improved Reporting

Our Budgeting and Forecast process has significantly improved and can be identified through the additional value added to each of our departments through customized, timely, accurate and flexible reporting. Additionally our Financial Analysts (system end users) have increased their capacity to provide more in-depth timely analysis to the organization and their support department especially with the drill down capabilities and customizing reports.

Pros

The System is easy to use, developer friendly and customizable

Cons

Reporting functionality within the system could be enhanced. We currently use templates created in excel to house formating or additional formulas that are not available in Adaptive but are requried for our reporting.

Time Saver

Although it takes some dedicated time and experience to set this product up I would say it is the top time saving piece of software I have ever used. I was able to setup our company plan with limited assistance from Adaptive. The assistance I did receive was top notch and always available with short advance notice. I opted to use a Adaptive consultant and deal with her on the phone. The product has been nothing but a time saver. It pays for itself many times over on a monthly basis. Being a startup I am constantly running new spins and versions of the budget and there is no way I could run as many scenarios using just excel. Days worth of work are reduced to hours. Like I said, it pays for itself many times over. I currently run a static budget and forecast on a monthly basis. I also run a one year rolling forecast that I will easily roll into my 2017 budget at year end. I would not hesitate to recommend this product to any of my fellow finance professionals.

Pros

Easy to run scenarios. Copy the forecast and make changes as necessary. Reporting is a breeze and no problems to do all kinds of variance analysis.

Cons

It's complicated to get up and running. You need a dedicated resource to take the time to learn the product. I would say my biggest issue is the weak help manuals.

Adaptive Planning eval

We use Adaptive Planning as our primary Budgeting and Forecasting system. Many of the functions are intuitive, but requires some time to get comfortable with the many functions that are available. I would not recommend the native reports, as they are difficult to generate quickly and easily without formal training. But their Office Connect add on tool is a nice enhancement to have to generate more custom reporting and also provides some degree of automation once the linked cells are set up properly.

Pros

The software behaves like a specialized version of Excel, however is limited in other areas that requires data to be exported into Excel to analyze more extensively.

Cons

The native reporting is not that easy to use, would prefer better canned reporting functionality.

Adaptive provides meaningful insight into our financial data!

Using Adaptive is a great experience! It's easy to learn, and once you try it, you will love it. I can forecast monthly , quarterly or whenever I like. Because my operational metrics, which drive our revenues and expenses, are also in Adaptive, I feel we get closer to our actual's each month. We have simplified our monthly reporting process from 6 days, to about an hour and a half. That extra time can be used to analyze the data, which is much more rewarding than ticking and tying numbers to a report. Our dashboard is solid and tells a story for our leaders. I love it!

Pros

Ease of use
Speed (refreshing and processing)
Automatic load of our financial data using a connector
Office Connect - an excel add in that allows me to run my financials in an instant
Adaptive Insights support personnel are amazing! I get a call back very quickly if I have a problem, and I don't feel like I'm being rushed when I ask other questions

Cons

The sheets, which display our data across time, would be fantastic if I could add a YTD column anywhere I like.

I would like to see my sheets display some simple graphs, which would allow me to display trends pictorially while reviewing with my customers.

Easy-to-use, finance owned, superior to Excel. This must be reviewed.

Pros

It is easy-to-use so we don't need any expensive technical people to maintain it. Our management and finance team own the entire solution. It is also very scalable from small organisations to large multinational multi-billion dollar revenue organisations. Scalable in the context of - price, performance, functionality and integration.

Cons

A few months ago I would have said the reliance on Java, but that has now been removed. It's happy days for us Adaptive customers.

Quick results with an intuitive design

This is a very robust software, that allows a strong look into the performance of your Company. The software has changed the way we are able to analyze our business.

Pros

I love the adaptability and ability to gain access to various information. It has allowed much greater access to analyzing our Key Performance Indicators.

Cons

For items that are not uniformly put into our accounting system, there are some workarounds needed to figure out how to display the correct data.

Adaptive Insights Planning Review

We started using AI about a year ago to get away from excel modeling and planning. AI has allowed us to created a driver-based model, implement rolling forecasts, and involve content owners from all departments in the planning process! This tool is awesome! Easy to use, easy to maintain, and the customer support is unparalled!

Pros

User friendly, cheap, good customer support

Cons

Somewhat limited functionality in areas, but they are constantly releasing new updates with added functionality and other improvements