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.

Very user friendly & similar syntax to excel

I feel the training is basic and outdated at this point.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.

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

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

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.

- That the licence was only three years long

- 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

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 .

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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

Implemented this software solution at my office. It was less expensive than some of the other providers, and we expected the product to perform as such. There are some drawbacks to the product, but I think these are in-line with the price.

Very deep database and highly flexible integration with our disparate data feed.

Slow. A data pull is not immediate and can cause some frustration if data is not pulled 100% accurately the first time. Collaboration can also be difficult, as the individual models are fragile and must be updated online.

Postive experience, good customer support after implementation

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

consolidation module could be improved, tracking reconciliations etc

Centralizes our planning, budgeting, & forecasting efforts. Quick roll-up of updates and opportunity to copy versions for running alternate scenarios. Upload of transactional data allows for greater degree of self-service research of budget variances on the part of budget owners.

Core functionality doesn't lend itself to efficient sales reporting

Ease of use and ability to quickly customize reports

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

Getting benefits in terms of financial analysis and setting up consistent reporting standards.

The modeling & reporting capabilities in Host are what set it apart from other systems. The ability to integrate reports directly with system data pulls is a very nice feature that can help reduce the complexity of workbooks

Size limited, may be difficult with scale up. It is also not an intuitive system to learn (especially with the spotlight add in) and is not as "ad hoc" ready as some other systems like Hyperion.

We've been using it as our budgeting software for the past few years, as well as to build our financial statements and I have been very impressed so far. It is easy to get information out, once the reports are built.

Planful feed from our Accounting software that happens every 5 minutes. That means we have the most up-to-date Accounting info for true budget to actuals!

Building reports takes a bit of time to learn. It's a fairly complicated software and definitely not for non-tech savvy folks