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Creating a high-impact finance function
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Updated: February 27, 2024 |
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Jake Ballinger is an experienced SEO and content manager with deep expertise in FP&A and finance topics. He speaks 9 languages and lives in NYC.
Revenue growth is almost impossible without accurate forecasting and budgeting. But how do you create financial forecasts and budgets quickly and efficiently?
Enter forecasting and budgeting software. The right tools help you confidently analyze, plan, and allocate funds to ensure your company's financial health.
Not sure where to start? Keep reading for a walk-through of the best forecasting and budgeting software on the market.
FP&A Writer, Cube Software
Financial forecasting and budgeting software helps businesses plan, allocate, and consolidate company budgets across multiple departments. These tools take historical data to generate valuable financial insights and projections.
While some software focuses on either budgeting or forecasting, most combine the two. Additionally, many are part of a more extensive corporate performance management software, often connecting multiple business operations into one platform.
These financial budgeting tools may include integrated business planning, financial budgeting, financial reporting, financial planning, or financial consolidation capabilities. Some even let FP&A teams perform broader integrated business planning.
A budget’s primary goal is determining what resources to allocate to each part of the company, from salaries to office supplies. The focus of a budget revolves around cash position, including expected revenues and expenses, to create specific financial goals for the foreseeable future.
Budgeting software helps businesses create and maintain budgets by assessing past budgets, reviewing expenditures, and detecting overspending.
Financial forecasts are snapshots of the future—or a possible future. When creating financial forecasts, teams must examine possible economic outcomes based on the most up-to-date drivers and assumptions. A common practice in budgeting and forecasting is what-if analysis from Excel.
Forecasting software helps you make projections about long-term and short-term financial performance. These tools use historical data, transaction and purchase history, competitor analysis, seasonal and market trends, and more to make profit predictions and inform decision-making.
The result is a view of how the business is trending so that the leaders can determine whether they should adjust the existing budgets or plans.
For example, a budget might assume the business will hit a $10M revenue target, but the forecast reveals they will only achieve $8M. Given the difference between the forecast and the budget, the business might adjust the variable costs associated with lower revenue while changing the expense plan to hit cash targets.
(Do you need a refresher on the difference between budgeting, planning, and forecasting? Head here.)
Cube is the world’s first spreadsheet-native forecasting tool for businesses of all sizes—but it does much more than forecasting.
Our cloud-based software helps finance teams work anywhere. We natively integrate with Excel and Google Sheets, so that FP&A teams can plan, analyze, and collaborate even across departments. Cube's single source of truth makes it easy to perform financial consolidation---combining data from multiple Excel spreadsheets and sharing it with leadership over Google Docs.
There are many companies (like Masterworks and SmugMug) that use Cube for nearly all of their company's financial operations. SmugMug even used Cube to rework its budget process and forecasting processes. SmugMug's FP&A team used their existing spreadsheet models to build financial forecasts and rework their budgeting process.
Automate manual workflows, reduce errors, and improve collaboration so you can make smarter business decisions in a fraction of the time.
Cube offers faster time to value (most companies are finished onboarding within two weeks) and is competitively priced.
Convinced? Book your free demo.
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See detailed pricing for customizable plans
NetSuite Planning and Budgeting helps finance teams automate financial processes to create accurate, accessible reports. Users can choose from customizable templates and workflows to collaborate.
The platform’s data synchronization capabilities reduce manual processes and offer a more unified and transparent approach to financial processes. A nice bonus? Cube integrates seamlessly with NetSuite.
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Annual licensing fees vary depending on users and add-ons, but exact pricing isn’t available on their site. Other sites report steadily increased pricing.
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Anaplan is a planning, forecasting, and financial management platform for finance and FP&A teams. It's an expensive enterprise solution for large companies.
Anaplan helps businesses move faster and make complex decisions with input and visibility for all stakeholders. But without a native Excel integration, it can be challenging to adopt.
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Pricing for the Anaplan platform is available by contacting the company. The platform offers three tiers with increasing services and features. Sites report that entry-level pricing starts from $30,000 to $50,000 annually.
Also read: Anaplan vs. Adaptive vs. Planful vs. Vena vs. Datarails vs. Cube
Workday Adaptive Planning is budgeting and forecasting software that covers financial, workforce, operational, and sales planning. Customers praise the platform’s user-friendliness and report customization but lament a lack of training and support resources.
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Pricing: Sources report packages starting at $250/month
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Planful is budgeting and forecasting software that helps companies minimize costs and save time. It allows users to see real-time data, identify issues, and take action to improve financial performance and employee productivity.
While some customers cite satisfaction with the company’s responsive customer support and regular improvements, others are frustrated with the slow analysis of large data volumes, and some report data inaccuracies.
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Pricing: Planful doesn’t list pricing on their website, but users report the platform to be more expensive than others.
IBM Planning Analytics helps businesses collect and analyze thousands of financial data points to support forecasting and budgeting needs. The AI-powered software bridges department silos to help organizations manage their finances. Users can also connect with dedicated IBM experts to strategize financial goals.
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Oracle Essbase allows users to optimize Excel spreadsheet data in the cloud, which makes complex hierarchies easier to manage. FP&A teams use it to build complex analytic applications. Essbase operates via a web browser interface or Microsoft Office.
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Pricing: Pricing details are unavailable online.
Oracle Hyperion Planning is dedicated budgeting and forecasting software with a Microsoft Office-based interface. They boast a series of robust integrations and workflow capabilities. However, some users report dissatisfaction with Hyperion’s templates.
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Board helps organizations gather financial intelligence and predictive analysis to streamline and transform a business’s financial operations. The company takes pride in unifying departments and adapting to various industries.
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Pricing: Pricing is not listed online, but plans depend on business size, number of user licenses, and customizations.
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PlanGuru helps organizations improve financial decision-making with easy general ledger importing to create quick analytics. The budgeting flexibility allows businesses of all sizes—SMBs, startups, or corporations—to optimize processes with the software. While the company offers endless features, some users report glitches.
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Starts at $99/month
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Centage Planning Maestro is budgeting and forecasting software that automates tasks otherwise prone to human error. The platform uses driver-based budgets and forecasts and also offers workforce planning.
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Pricing: There are three pricing tiers: Standard, Professional, and Enterprise. Prices aren’t listed, but sources say plans start at $10,000 annually.
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Xero is a simple accounting software solution connecting with banks for AI reconciliation. Xero allows users to manage their accounting needs from one central, easy-to-use platform that saves them time on tedious everyday tasks.
Bonus? It integrates easily with Cube!
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Prophix is a cloud-based financial software solution that automates standard business processes like data importing, pre-built functionality, and reporting. The platform’s AI-powered virtual financial analyst detects human error and unfamiliar transactions.
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Pricing: Users report reasonable pricing, but specific pricing isn’t listed online.
Vena Solutions is an FP&A tool that helps with business budgeting and financial forecasting by automatically generating forecasts and insights from data. The software loads automatic data into a single source of truth, so you can spend less time collecting data and more time budgeting and forecasting.
Vena provides variance analysis, identifies discrepancies, and builds ad-hoc reports for your business. It analyzes your company’s financial health by slicing and dicing data across different entities.
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Pricing: Vena doesn’t list the price on its website, but customers cite its high price as an issue.
Jirav is cloud-based financial planning and analysis that helps accounting and finance teams budget and forecast without spreadsheets. It’s designed to be completely customizable so you can track, forecast, and share the data that matters most to your business.
It’s best for smaller businesses and organizations without international clients since they don’t have multi-currency capabilities.
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Datarails uses automated consolidation and reporting to help organizations improve financial decision-making. It provides automatic consolidation and reporting, letting users focus on the insights that can help their business.
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Solver is corporate performance management software with automated budgeting and forecasting features. Users can forecast financial outcomes weekly, monthly, or annually, accessing critical insights in minutes.
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Pricing: While pricing is not available on their website, reports note it starts at almost $7,000 a year.
Budgyt is a cloud-based software tool that offers a solution to replace spreadsheets. It’s a financial budgeting tool that delivers solutions for small to medium-sized businesses, non-profits, or larger enterprises with complex needs like cost allocation.
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OnPlan is Excel-compatible budgeting and forecasting software. It’s best for small-to-mid-sized organizations. OnPlan's strong customer service team helps users maximize its capabilities and offer feedback.
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Pricing: OnPlan offers three pricing plans: Essentials, Growth, and Growth+. The Essentials plan starts at $12,500 per year, while other tiers require you to contact OnPlan for a quote.
Sage Intacct is a cloud financial software that lets you build dashboards in minutes. Its general ledger includes eight dimensions, contextualizing transactions, budgets, and operations.
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Pricing: Sage Intacct advertises “tailored” pricing and invites you to reach out for a quote. Users report expensive plans compared to competitors.
We’ve covered the overall best forecasting and budgeting software, but let’s get into some specifics.
You can find smaller-scale personal finance software to help you create and maintain budgets and conduct forecasting.
Some free budgeting platforms include:
But here's the thing: for a company to reach its maximum budgeting and forecasting potential, it must invest in a software program. For example, free software doesn't allow multi-scenario analysis and automated reporting.
Small businesses need affordable, efficient, and easy-to-implement forecasting and budgeting software.
Cube offers SMBs and growing startups the ability to scale at an affordable price. Our spreadsheet-native platform simplifies budgeting and forecasting while adapting to your growth and needs.
The best forecasting and budgeting software makes life easier for your finance teams. It helps you grow and optimize your processes, not replace them entirely.
We can confidently say that Cube is the best budgeting and forecasting software that provides tools for all your needs—right where you’re already working.
Whether you already use Excel, Google Sheets, or other spreadsheets, Cube is compatible and bi-directional with any spreadsheet.
Ready to take your forecasting and budgeting to the next level?
