Planful - an honest opinion from a 9-year admin.

We use Planful for management reports on sales and expenses. We also use it to budget/forecast P&Ls. The problem was that we didn't have a semi-automated solution for Budgeting and forecasting. Planful fixes that problem. Another issue we have is that we don't have a centralized database for data used in management reporting. We load into various statistical accounts for visibility and record-keeping as well.

We are able to build department budgets using a bottom-up approach using inputs from budget managers. We can also get into details by GL account by Project Code in Budgets and also when comparing to Actuals. Therefore, we can pinpoint where the variances lie and assist budget owners in becoming aware of where over or under-spending occurs and planning future spending accordingly.

We are able to do all of our internal reporting using Planful, which is a huge time saver. External reports such as SEC Reporting are still done outside of Planful.