SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)

Score8.2 out of 10

281 Reviews and Ratings

What is SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)?

The SAP BPC software is designed to help users plan and achieve a faster, more accurate close. The SAP BPC software aims to help users spend more time growing their business and less time closing books. The vendor’s value proposition is that their software delivers planning, budgeting, forecasting, and financial consolidation capabilities in a single application. This, in turn, enables them to easily adjust plans and forecasts, speed up budget and closing cycles, and ensure compliance with financial reporting standards.

According to the vendor, with SAP BPC users can:

•Make better decisions based on what-if analyses and scenario planning

•Use collaboration tools to improve accountability and planning accuracy

•Shrink cycle times, close the books faster, and align their plans with strategic goals •Get real-time access to data in SAP S/4HANA Finance

•Run on their platform of choice – SAP BW/4HANA, SAP NetWeaver or on Microsoft •Engage in further visualization and predictive analysis leveraging SAP Analytics Cloud in a seamless manner

Categories & Use Cases

Media

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Financial data consolidation
Consolidating data from several entities into a single statement using US GAAP, IFRS or other standards.
Category average: 8.2
Detailed Audit Trails
Tracing changes to data and processes that were run.
Category average: 8.2
Financial budgeting
Annual budget for revenue and operating expenses, headcount/compensation, capital expenses, projects, etc.
Category average: 8.9

Personalized dashboards
Create custom dashboards and reports without the help of IT or administrators.
Category average: 8
Key Performance Indicator setting
Ability to set key performance indicators for measuring progress towards goals.
Category average: 8.3
KPIs
Select from a library of more than 6,000 key performance indicators, and incorporate KPIs into your planning process.
Category average: 7.9

Verified User

Professional in Finance and Accounting (201-500 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We have recently built 2 reports with SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) which allow us to show balance sheet & P&L in one currency that has evolved our reporting process and made it more efficient and accurate. Previously we used a manual excel file to consolidate all values and the exchange rate issue was very time reliant and caused multiple issues. Sage BPC has eliminated this issue as we have the elimination entry section that clears up. It has also allowed us to create consolidated reports for different areas of business (eg - 2 or 3 businesses at once) which were previously reported manually.

Pros

combine currencies into one easy to use report
allow the addition of graphs to reports and dashboards to show trends clearly
allows for multiple books to be added where you can add and consolidate a number of entities together at your choosing with no hassle.
stores previous consolidations so it is easy to track & fix any issues with progress

Cons

some reports seem to take a while to run and crash when too much information is being processed
Graphs don't allows certain things to be added like labels & %. If this could be replicated like excel graphs it would be ideal. The option to then add to dashboards would help presentation of accounts
reports are very limited and the scope to add in creative reporting isnt large. Would be nice to be able to add in manual calculations on reports and show KPI's specific to company

Return on Investment

We have been able to spend much more time analysis reports rather than producing them as they are automated and show in one currency
budget input has been really helpful as we have been able to process this and measure performance clearly as opposed to on manual excel sheets which are easy to manipulate / reliant on manual entry.
as we can continuously see performance against targets we have been able to prepare better for year end forecast due to trends being analysed and expectations being more easy to manage as a result

Alternatives Considered

Dimensions360

Other Software Used

Dimensions, InTime, itris 9

Verified User

Manager in Finance and Accounting (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use it for forecasting and budgeting for our multibrand business

Pros

Easy to use UX
Easy to build attributes
Formulas to retrieve information from the data base
Excel very stable even with the SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) formulas embedded into the sheet
Easy to write reports

Cons

Better UX for non- finance team members to review or input data

Return on Investment

The ease of to use the product makes the teams process seamless and enjoyable to use

Verified User

Executive in Corporate (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Using it for planning purposes only. Focus is on budgeting and capex (invest). We were looking into a couple of other products such as Allevo by Kern. The most important functionality is the bi-directional SAP link. We will adopt some other processes by beginning of April. some sort of driver based costing will be part of a project by end of this year.

Pros

Frontend / data input
Consolidation
Performance
SAP Connection

Cons

Reporting functions
No actual values to compare
Business logic

Return on Investment

Negative: TCO High
Positiv: Great User acceptance

Alternatives Considered

Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)

Other Software Used

BiznessApps, IBM Cognos Analytics

Verified User

Director in Finance and Accounting (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

For Budget and Planning, consolidating various Business Units for Managment reporting.

Pros

Consolidation makes it easy for users
Ease of use for Finance/Accounting users
Access data in real time

Cons

Excel interface is slow.
SAP BPC nears the end of life, looks like it will not be supported soon.

Return on Investment

Excel interface is not robust, even the functionality of BPC is good, users are frustrated with crashing and taking time to refresh data.
Functionality is good, IC elimination does the job.

Alternatives Considered

Workday Adaptive Planning

Other Software Used

Anaplan, Oracle Cloud EPM Planning

Leigh Watkins

Senior Accountant in Finance and Accounting at Southwire Company (5001-10,000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use BPC for reporting and forecasting in our company.

Pros

Provides a very user friendly dashboard with information readily available
Consolidates at a level appropriate to what is needed
Issues reports that can be easily distributed to the company

Cons

It could be a little easier to manipulate within the data

Return on Investment

Allowed us to report out certain KPIs that previously weren't available
Compiles an overall company report that is easy to understand

Other Software Used

Altair Monarch

Anaplan

Oracle Hyperion (legacy)

Wolters Kluwer CCH® Tagetik

IBM Planning Analytics Local - UNPUBLISHED

SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)

What is SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)?

Categories & Use Cases

Media

Key Features

Top Performing Features

Financial data consolidation

Detailed Audit Trails

Financial budgeting

Areas for Improvement

Personalized dashboards

Key Performance Indicator setting

KPIs

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