7 Best FP&A and Financial Planning Software Tools for 2024 - Vena

When you think about it, FP&A teams are the central nervous system of a business: they provide analysis and insights that help management make better decisions. 

They do this through ensuring the accuracy of financial data and reports, and supporting the rest of the company with budgeting, planning and forecasting. 

But to drive that invaluable data-driven decision making, you need an FP&A platform that will centralize all your data sources in one place, help you easily collaborate with team members and model data with complete flexibility. 

But what exactly should you be looking for in an FP&A solution? And how do the current FP&A solutions on the market—which has grown vastly in the last few years—measure up? 

Keep reading for an overview of seven of the top FP&A and financial planning software tools on the market—and the pros and cons of each. 

What Does FP&A Software Do?

Gartner defines financial planning software as "a key tool that enables organizations to manage their enterprise-wide financial planning, forecasting and budgeting process." It empowers businesses to "plan and analyze business financial strategy for the organization across all three financial statements (profit and loss, balance sheet and cash flow)."  

Typically, FP&A software also supports scenario modeling, collaboration, analytics, budgeting and performance reporting.  

Let's dig a little deeper into how to choose a financial planning software that truly supports your unique business’s needs. 

How To Choose the Best FP&A Platform

To empower your FP&A processes, you need a platform that will drive confident and connected decision making and ensure business-wide accountability. One that offers data analytics, guides business intelligence, lets you share actionable and scalable insights across your organization and drives strategic business planning and up-to-the-minute analysis.

To achieve all this, your financial planning platform should have: 

• Access to real-time analytics at scale 
• An intuitive, easy-to-use interface 
• Powerful BI cloud and AI capabilities 
• Functionality that drives operational alignment and accountability  
• Collaboration tools that let you share insights across cross-functional teams  
• Multidimensional modeling and scenario analysis capabilities 
• Unified data control and security to ensure your data is protected 

Ultimately, the FP&A tool you choose needs to deliver on three things: it should connect your data, be intuitive for users and stay scalable to your business needs, letting you add on additional planning use cases as your business grows. 

The Best FP&A and Financial Planning Software

1. Vena

Vena’s Excel-based FP&A software helps automate the process of compiling, updating and distributing financial and operational reporting so that your team can spend less time aggregating data and more time analyzing it.   

Vena brings all the data from source systems such as your ERP into a centralized database and automatically refreshes your templates with the latest data.  

With extensible APIs, native integrations with Excel, PowerPoint and PowerBI, multidimensional modeling and embedded AI capabilities, Vena helps you accelerate analysis, so you can find creative solutions to complex business problems. 

Pros

• The end-user interface is intuitive and easy to use, as it directly uses Excel, which will be familiar to most finance team members and external collaborators
• Can easily set permissions and restrictions to provide appropriate access to users across the entire company
• Has two AI tools: Vena Copilot, a complete planning AI assistant, and Vena Insights, an intelligent reporting and analytics solution
• Flexible reporting capabilities across financial and operational planning, supporting not only typical FP&A processes like budgeting and forecasting, but workforce planning, demand planning, sales forecasting and more 

Cons

• There can be a learning curve when it comes to getting started and setting up models
• Large and complex files may be slower to load
• Has a robust implementation process which requires a solid upfront plan  

Best For

Vena is suitable for companies that work heavily in Excel and would like to have the choice of leveraging pre-built reporting templates or want the flexibility to create more complex customized reports. 

In the BARC 2024 Planning Survey—a survey of 1,272 respondents who evaluated software on criteria from business benefits to customer satisfaction—Vena received top ranks across categories such as project length and product satisfaction.  

Key Features

Want to see Vena in action? Request a demo today.

2. Planful

Used to streamline business-wide planning, consolidation, reporting and visual analytics, Planful lets you see performance data at scale, automate, improve reporting and align planning processes. Their financial performance management software is meant largely for bigger FP&A teams and CFOs looking to streamline their planning efforts. 

Pros

• Offers collaboration and sharing tools with a web-based user interface
• Adheres to common security and compliance requirements
• Provides consistent and customizable financial reporting 

Cons

• Fragmented platform and disconnected planning and reporting, mixing legacy database technology with different database for dynamic planning

• Challenging to maintain, requiring significant IT and technical support
• Requires third-party technology for full breadth of FP&A and financial close processes
• Limited Excel add-in, with no way to easily export live reports into Excel. 

Best For

Planful is an option for companies looking to streamline planning and budgeting cycles, improve analytics and reporting and gain better insights into their financial performance. The platform is a good fit for larger companies with FP&A teams that want to work more collaboratively within their business. 

Key Features

3. Anaplan

Anaplan is a web-based, enterprise-level business modeling and planning platform. It serves multiple areas across the business, including finance, marketing, sales, supply chain and workforce management. Anaplan offers forecasting and scenario modeling capabilities, with real-time access to data and collaboration capabilities. 

Pros

• Can be scaled across the organization
• Supports complex calculations
• Is highly customizable to accommodate multiple use cases

Cons

• Steep learning curve for modeling and configuration
• Configuration solutions can be complex and challenging to maintain
• There are no pre-configured starter models
• Modeling is complex and difficult to use and maintain

Best For

Anaplan is best for larger enterprises with multiple use cases and an extensive IT team to help support implementation. The platform is a fit for organizations looking to support a variety of business reporting processes, such as finance, sales, forecasting, supply chain and operations. 

Key Features

4. Prophix

Prophix's corporate performance management (CPM) software is designed mostly for finance teams at mid-market organizations. It improves profitability and minimizes risk by automating budgeting, forecasting, reporting and consolidation-to-close processes for better decision making. Prophix is available in the cloud or on premise.

Pros

• Supports multiple use cases
• Makes it easy to build custom reports
• Has 20+ years of category and industry experience

Cons

• Limited Microsoft Excel integration
• Weak business intelligence and machine learning integrations or tools
• Template creation is cumbersome and difficult to use
• The combination of cloud and on-premise deployments are not at feature parity
• Rigid and inflexible workflow, not adaptable for different business processes

Best For

Prophix is ideal for teams looking to mostly move away from Excel, especially mid-size and smaller companies with users that aren’t highly tech-savvy.

Key Features

5. Workday Adaptive Planning

Workday Adaptive Planning is an enterprise planning and analysis solution designed to empower collaboration, insights and agility. It offers modeling and analytics functionality for organizations of all sizes, with customizable offerings for different use cases. 

Pros

• Has brand recognition and a large customer base, as a provider of broader suite of platforms such as its human capital management solution
• Is customizable to certain use cases, including workforce planning, sales planning and financial planning
• Offers flexibility to create sheets and views based on the needs of business users

Cons

• Not a native Microsoft Excel integration, but instead uses proprietary modeling and formula language
• Has a steep learning curve, with users reporting weak support and implementation services 
• Challenging to update models, add new departments or accounts, or create new reporting hierarchies 

Best For

Workday Adaptive Planning is ideal for businesses that are already using Workday HCM and looking for reporting capabilities that help with quickly identifying changing conditions and prioritize tasks to maximize efficiency and collaboration. 

Key Features

6. Datarails

Datarails is a financial planning and analysis platform that offers data visualization capabilities, enabling financial reporting, budgeting, forecasting, scenario modeling and analysis. Finance teams can benefit from the spreadsheets and financial models of Excel while automating their financial reporting and planning through the platform’s Excel add-in. 

Pros

• Offers a low-cost option that makes it a good starter solution
• Offers a point solution for financial budgeting, planning and reporting
• Connects to Google Sheets and to Microsoft Excel using legacy desktop ribbon technology

Cons

• Does not support extended, scalable planning use cases beyond traditional financial budgeting, planning and reporting
• Flexibility and modeling is difficult and requires Datarails support to aid in setup and maintenance
• The product is in development and has performance issues, with key features and capabilities missing
• The Excel add-in does not allow you to use Excel’s full features

Best For

Datarails is best for small and mid-size businesses looking for a tool that can support basic financial reporting use cases, especially those who rely heavily on Excel or Google Sheets. 

Key Features

7. Cube

Cube is an FP&A platform that provides real-time financial and operational data access. It enables strategic planning, reporting and analysis within a spreadsheet environment, with flexible use cases across functions.

Pros

• Allows you to get started fairly quickly
• Provides customizability and flexibility
• Integrates with both Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets 

Cons

• Has limited security with no way to restrict what users can access
• The product is relatively newer and immature technology, with a limited feature set and functionality that's still lacking
• There are modeling limitations, with a limited number of dimensions your organization can have

Best For

Cube is a good fit for businesses that already use Google Sheets or Excel and want to add to its functionality. The platform is best suited to lean finance teams taking their first steps in FP&A automation. 

Key Features

Conclusion

When it comes to implementing FP&A software, we recommend starting by having conversations with your end users—your finance team, controllers, budget managers and other stakeholders—and a review of your business goals. Use those insights to come up with a list of a few potential use cases you want to focus on early in your implementation process. Then ask these three questions:  

• Where can we get the most value?
• What will be the easiest to do?
• What’s going to get done the quickest? 

From there, it’s all about carefully comparing the pros and cons of each vendor in your shortlist to make sure you get the solution that best meets your unique business’s needs—because every business will need to plan differently.   

Frequently Asked Questions

What should I look for in FP&A tools?

What you should look for in your FP&A tools depends on your most pressing needs and the planning processes you have in place.

You should also consider your people and the change involved in bringing in any new technology investment. Look for a familiar, flexible interface that lets your team stay agile and proactive, is scalable as your business grows and connects your data for more informed analysis and decision making.

Automation, collaboration and visualization functionality are also key if you hope to fully empower your FP&A team.

What does FP&A software do?

Gartner says financial planning and analysis (FP&A) software supports “the office of finance’s budgeting, planning and forecasting efforts. Many also supplement the office’s budgeting and planning process support with modeling, collaboration analytics and performance-reporting capabilities, to increase its ability to manage performance by linking corporate strategy and execution.”

In a nutshell, FP&A software allows you to better understand your business’s overall financial health, look ahead to make better decisions for the future and collaborate on budgeting and planning.

What is xP&A and how is extended planning different from FP&A?

According to Gartner, extended planning and analysis (xP&A) “extends” traditional FP&A solutions focused solely on finance into other planning domains—such as workforce planning, sales, operations and marketing. 

Solutions that enable xP&A help finance teams build agility, resilience and alignment into financial, strategic and operational planning. 

What other solutions does Vena provide?

Vena offers solutions across FP&A, sales performance management and financial close management. We also have pre-configured industry solutions designed specifically for banking and credit unions, SaaS, insurance, manufacturing, real estate, construction, hotel and lodging, higher education, healthcare, professional sports, not for profit and professional services.