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.