Finance teams are counted on to provide the data foundation for their organizations' long-term and high-level strategies. However, providing this data foundation is difficult when finance teams become bogged down in manual tasks on static spreadsheets that draw out the budgeting process and deliver a faulty product. It’s hard to determine a long-term strategy when your data is already outdated and possibly incorrect. Collaboration is also difficult with static spreadsheets as multiple versions can be confused.
Who among us hasn’t been faced with the dilemma of choosing between “Final_Final_Budget_ver_6” and “Final_Budget_Final_ver_6” to send to the CFO? There are also security concerns implicit in sending confidential financial information through email, a system that is prone to leaks and hacking.
What are Sage Intacct users to do? Luckily, FP&A platforms offer Sage Intacct finance teams automation, security, and collaboration features that simply cannot be found within static spreadsheet programs. FP&A platforms come in a wide variety of formats from web-based to on-prem to cloud-based, each of which has its own advantages and disadvantages for Sage Intacct finance teams. Building off our previous list published in 2021, here is a list of the top 3 Cloud FP&A platforms for Sage Intacct users in 2022 along with some key information for prospective buyers.
Workday Adaptive Planning
Adaptative Insights is a cloud-based FP&A platform that was acquired by Workday Inc. in 2018. Adaptive was an early player in the FP&A space and began operations in 2003 as an alternative to static spreadsheets and on-premises software for budgeting, forecasting, and reporting. Beyond those core features, Adaptive also has dedicated solutions for sales, workforce planning, and operational planning. Adaptive can integrate with any ERP or GL data source.
Adaptive has deep capabilities but has a unique scripting language which might take some time to fully implement for new users. Adaptive has also significantly increased its prices but this can be scaled with the number of users.
Vena
Unlike many of the other solutions mentioned in this article, Vena is an Excel add-in meaning it functions entirely within the Excel environment rather than operating outside of it. This familiarity will be beneficial to those who do not wish to learn an entirely new language for financial planning but simply expand on the functions of their existing toolkit. Vena can integrate with the Sage Intacct ERP system among others.
Vena can upgrade your finance team’s performance through automation and more advanced budgeting and planning but as an Excel add-on, it lacks independent functionality that can take it beyond the limits of static spreadsheets.
Limelight
Limelight, the company that operates this blog, is a Cloud FP&A platform that combines Excel familiarity and formulas with advanced data structures, and privacy. Designed with finance users in mind, Limelight connects directly to a variety of source software from ERPs to HR which includes Sage Intacct as Limelight is a Sage Tech Partner. The purpose of Limelight is to unify a team’s financial data to make better financial decisions and opportunities easier to arrive at.
Limelight offers competitive, scaled pricing and its implementation is handled by the Limelight team itself.