Budgeting and Forecasting Software enables users to develop well-informed financial plans in order to best prepare for future business ventures. It provides businesses with the tools to estimate future earnings and expenditures across disparate departments.For complex organizations, budgeting and forecasting software acts as a centralized hub for budgets, forecasts, and spending reports across the entire organization.
Department managers typically use budgeting and forecasting software to construct budgets and forecasts for their respective departments. Accountants can then use this software to bring together the various budgets from different departments to construct a company-wide budget.
Budgeting and Forecasting software share many features with basic accounting or budgeting software. They typically include more advanced functionalities with respect to their forecasting and scenario modeling features. Budgeting and Forecasting software functionalities are also often included in Corporate Performance Management (CPM) suites, but will lack the proactive KPI management features of the larger platforms.
A typical budgeting and forecasting software tool will include the following features:
Long-term financial planning
Financial Budgeting
Forecasting
Scenario Modeling
Management Reporting
Analytics
Version Control
Consider these factors when comparing budgeting and forecasting software:
Point Solution vs. CPM Suite: The size of your organization will likely determine whether you opt for a dedicated Budgeting and Forecasting tool or a more comprehensive Corporate Performance Management tool that includes budgeting and forecasting as one of its features. Given the cost of the suite-style CPM products, smaller outfits may opt to go with the cheaper dedicated budgeting and forecasting tools. Whereas larger, complex organizations would likely benefit from the increased functionality of a CPM product.
Integrations: Consider how well each budgeting options integrates with existing finance and accounting tools. Data will need to flow smoothly from system to system and avoid manual data transfers at all costs. Product demos and reviewer experiences are both strong sources of insight for this question.
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Budget and forecasting functionalities are often one module of a suite-style platform. Pricing for suite-style products are not available unless requested from the vendor directly. Products dedicated solely to Budget and Forecasting include tiered pricing that ranges from $0-$60 per month on the low end to $30-$200 on the high end. The higher price points typically include more seats, dedicated support and, in some cases, access to financial advisors. Some vendors do offer a free trial, but this is less common for the suite-style platforms.
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Phophix offers a Corporate Performance Management (CPM) software that enables budgeting, planning, and reporting. Prophix emphasizes the software’s ability to automate data management and reporting tasks.
Vena Solutions provides a financial process automation solution to automate Corporate Performance Management, accounting and budgeting, Regulatory & Compliance, and other finance-related processes. It is scaled for medium to large-sized organizations.
Planful (formerly Host Analytics) is a cloud-based enterprise performance management (EPM) suite. It includes financial applications for modeling, planning, consolidation, reporting and analytics.
Oracle’s complete EPM suite is designed to give users the agility needed to respond to change faster. Combined with the simplicity of the cloud, it enables companies of any size to drive accurate and agile plans across finance and operational lines of business, accelerate financial…
Tagetik is a corporate performance management solution that unifies budgeting, financial planning, consolidation and management reporting. Tagetik is offered as SaaS, on a private cloud, or on-premise, and can migrate between deployments as needed.
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,…
LivePlan is business plan software for entrepreneurs. Features include the pitch creation, sample plans, financial assessments, and performance dashboards.
Planning Maestro offers a way to plan, budget, forecast and report financial performance by enabling finance teams to see into the future, and test the impact of different scenarios, in order to make faster decisions with confidence. Planning Maestro streamlines the entire planning…
Axiom Software (formerly Axiom EPM) is a performance management solution that is designed to help finance professionals analyze results, model the future, and optimize organizational decision making. Solutions for long-range planning, budgeting & forecasting, reporting & analytics,…
Float is a cash flow forecasting solution that is designed to integrate with a company’s existing accounting software to create cash flow analytics.
Fathom is a management reporting, forecasting and financial analysis tool from the company of the same name in Brisbane, which helps users to assess business performance, monitor trends and identify improvement opportunities. Fathom is presented as ideal for accountants and advisors…
Budgeting, Forecasting, Reporting and Modeling tools.IDU supports business agility through real-time, accurate, inclusive budgeting, forecasting and reporting.IDU’s budgeting, forecasting and reporting tools are designed for both financial and non-financial managers to use and understand.…
Causal, from the company of the same name in London, presents a way to perform calculations, visualise data, and communicate with numbers. It helps build models faster, connect them directly to data, and share them with interactive dashboards and visuals. Suggested use cases are…
Built to support the needs of high-growth, data-driven companies, Mosaic.tech fuels financial planning and business performance. The platform combines big data and machine learning to provide predictive reporting capabilities, to level the playing field and giving startups tools…
Jirav, headquartered in San Francisco, aims to deliver smarter financials and faster insights, helping to understand where a business has been and predict where it will go. The system joins cloud-based Accounting, HR, CRM and billing data to automatically surface an interconnected…
Some popular budgeting and forecasting software products include:
